"What shall we do with Moufflet, when the committee of surveillance comes?" whispered Yvonne, who with all the others, instinctively lowered her voice in this time of peril, lest the very walls betray her.
"Leave that to me!" commanded Jean. "I've decided what I shall do and say, only be sure you do not contradict me, either by word or action!"
"I wish we could have hidden the little animal," sighed Mère Clouet, "but of course it would have been useless to try. He would surely betray both himself and us by some bark or whine!" So the hours wore away. The two days of suspense drew to an end, and the Clouet family were beginning to hope they had escaped the ordeal, when at dusk that night, a thundering knock was heard at the door.
"Open, or we break in!" growled a voice, and Jean hastened to comply.
"Coming, coming!" he called cheerfully. "You are welcome, citizens all!"
"That's a gayer greeting than we get at most places!" answered a high nasal voice as the door was opened. And without further ceremony there tramped in six huge pikemen, headed by one of the committee of surveillance,—the owner of the nasal voice. He was a singularly unprepossessing specimen of humanity, thin, wiry, short of stature, evil-faced, with little, claw-like hands. He had a curious habit of slinking about with soft, noiseless steps and a watchful look in his beady eyes that reminded one irresistibly of a mouse. The pikemen addressed him as Citizen Coudert.
"Pikemen, do your duty," he commanded, "while I question these people!" And while the pikemen tramped through the house, emptying drawers, boxes and barrels, thumping the walls and floors, tearing up clothing and destroying china on the pretence of a more thorough search, Citizen Coudert proceeded to put the inmates upon a rack of torturing questions. He had just touched upon the ticklish subject of sympathy for the ex-king and the royal family, when a shout from one of the pikemen announced the discovery of Moufflet, curled up in a distant corner.
"That's a dog I'll swear I saw at the Tuileries garden many a day this past year, with the little Wolf-Cub! I know dogs well, and am never mistaken in one!" Jean's heart was in his throat, but he maintained an indifferent air.
"Aha! is it so!" snarled Coudert, rubbing his claw-like hands, and with a gleam very like satisfaction in his beady eyes. "Answer me in regard to this dog, if you please, young sir! Is he the property of that Wolf-Cub brat?" Then Jean played his boldest card.
"He was, I suppose, Citizen Coudert, but he's mine now! And when you hear how I got him, you will say I did well, and acted worthily as a good republican citizen. I went with the throng to the palace on June twentieth, to see the sights. There I found this little dog, and I said to myself,—'Won't it be a fine joke on royalty to take this animal and train him in good republican ways!' So I caught him and carried him home." Citizen Coudert looked incredulous.