"No, my friend," said Charles, drawing a little purse from his pocket and handing him a small coin, "here is your pourboire."
"Thanks, citizen," said Coclès, lifting his hat with one hand and holding out the other for the money. "The deuce! white money; so there is still some left in France? I thought that it was all done for; but now I see, as citizen Tétrell says, that that is just a report started by the aristocrats."
"Come, get along to your horses," said citizeness Teutch, "and leave us alone."
Coclès went out grumbling. Madame Teutch sat down, and, in spite of some slight opposition on the part of Charles, she took him on her knee. Although, as we have said, he was nearly fourteen years old, he did not look more than ten or eleven.
"See here, my little friend," said she, "what I am going to tell you now is for your own good. If you have any silver, you must not show it. Have it changed for paper money; paper money having a forced currency, and a gold louis being worth five hundred francs in assignats, you will not lose anything, and will not risk being suspected as an aristocrat." Then, changing the subject, she said: "How cold his hands are, the poor little fellow."
And she held his hands out to the fire, as if he had been a child.
"And now what shall we do next?" she said. "A little supper?"
"Oh, as for that, madame, no, thank you; we dined at Erstein, and I am not at all hungry. I would rather go to bed, for I don't think I can get quite warm until I am in my bed."
"Very well; then we will warm your bed; and when you are in it we will give you a good cup of—what? Milk or broth?"
"Milk, if you please."