Englishmen, officers especially, were just now welcome guests in Paris. Mr. Hyde, of the Royal Picts, as he entered himself upon the hotel register, with his soldierly air, his Crimean beard, and his arm in a sling, attracted general attention. He was treated with extraordinary politeness everywhere by the most polite people in the world. When he asked a question a dozen answers were ready for him—a dozen officious friends were prepared to escort him anywhere.
But Rupert Hyde wanted no one to teach him his way about Paris. Within an hour of his arrival, after he had hastily changed the garments he had worn on the night journey, had sallied forth, and, entering the long Rue Lafayette, made straight to the headquarters of the 21st arrondissement. Urgent business of a public nature had brought him to Paris, but this was a private matter which he desired to dispose of before he attended to anything else.
The place he sought was easily found. It was a plain gateway of yellowish-white stone, over which hung a brand-new tricolour from a flag-staff fixed at an angle, and on either side a striped sentry-box containing a Garde de Paris.
The gateway led into a courtyard, in which were half-a-dozen loungers, clustered chiefly around the entrance to a handsome flight of stone steps within the building.
Just within this second entrance was a functionary, half beadle, half hall-porter, wearing a low-crowned cocked hat and a suit of bright blue cloth plentifully adorned with buttons, to whom Hyde addressed himself.
"The office of M. the Mayor, if you please."
"Upstairs; take the first turn to the right, and then—"
"But surely I know that voice!" said some one behind Hyde, who had turned round quickly.
"What, you!" went on the speaker; "my excellent English comrade—here in Paris! Oh, joyful surprise!"
"Is it you? M. Anatole Belhomme, of the Voltigeurs? You have left the Crimea? Is Sebastopol taken? the Russians all massacred, then?"