“If you mean the celebrated coiner, Jacques Giraumont, he waits without. You know our rules. I cannot admit him without leave.”
“Bon! we give it,—eh, messieurs?” said Gawtrey. “Ay-ay,” cried several voices. “He knows the oath, and will hear the penalty.”
“Yes, he knows the oath,” replied Birnie, and glided back.
In a moment more he returned with a small man in a mechanic’s blouse. The new comer wore the republican beard and moustache—of a sandy grey—his hair was the same colour; and a black patch over one eye increased the ill-favoured appearance of his features.
“Diable! Monsieur Giraumont! but you are more like Vulcan than Adonis!” said Gawtrey.
“I don’t know anything about Vulcan, but I know how to make five-franc pieces,” said Monsieur Giraumont, doggedly.
“Are you poor?”
“As a church mouse! The only thing belonging to a church, since the Bourbons came back, that is poor!”
At this sally, the coiners, who had gathered round the table, uttered the shout with which, in all circumstances, Frenchmen receive a bon mot.
“Humph!” said Gawtrey. “Who responds with his own life for your fidelity?”