"How can things over our way interest you?" asked Michel, who not being quite sure to which party the man he was addressing belonged, hesitated as to the color he ought to give to his replies.
"Go on, Monsieur le baron," resumed Maître Jacques; "never mind whether what you have to say is useful to me or not. Come, bethink yourself. Whom did you meet on the way?"
Michel looked at Petit-Pierre with embarrassment. Maître Jacques intercepted the look, and calling up Trigaud-Vermin, he ordered him to stand between the two prisoners, like the Wall in "Midsummer-Night's Dream."
"Well," continued Michel, "we met what everybody meets at all hours and on every road for the last three days in and about Machecoul,--we met soldiers."
"Did they speak to you?"
"No."
"No? Do you mean to say they let you pass without a word?"
"We avoided them."
"Bah!" said Maître Jacques, in a doubtful tone.
"Travelling on our own business it did not suit us to be mixed up in affairs that were none of ours."