"I don't mind; but your minister will be deuced sorry for not seeing me."
"It is the rule. Write to him and get a letter of audience; then you will get on swimmingly."
"Hang me if it is not harder to get a word in to Minister Roland than to his majesty Louis XVI. that was."
"What do you know about that?"
"Lord help your ignorance, young man; there was a time when I saw the king whenever I pleased; my name would tell you that."
"What is your name? Are you King Frederick William or the Emperor Francis?"
"No; I am not a tyrant or a slave-driver—no aristo—but just Nicholas Claude Gamain, master of the masters of my trade of locksmithery. Did you never hear of Master Gamain who taught the craft to old Capet?"
The footman looked questioningly at his fellows, who nodded.
"Then it is another pair of shoes. Write your name on a sheet of paper, and I will send it in to the Home Secretary."
"Write? It is all very easy to say write, but I was no dabster at the pen before these villains tried to poison me; and it is far worse now. Just look how they doubled me up with arsenic."