“You’ll have to give me a hand with that,” said the man. “Wait a bit; I’ll just see that everything is all right in the cart. I’ll be back directly.”
“Take something with you then as you are going down,” said Madame Simon in her querulous voice.
The man picked up a basket of linen that stood in the angle by the door. He hoisted it on his back and shuffled away with it across the landing and out through the gate.
“How did Capet like parting from his papa and maman?” asked Chauvelin with a laugh.
“H’m!” growled Simon laconically. “He will find out soon enough how well off he was under our care.”
“Have the other commissaries come yet?”
“No. But they will be here directly. Citizen Cochefer is upstairs mounting guard over Capet.”
“Well, good-bye, Papa Simon,” concluded Chauvelin jovially. “Citizeness, your servant!”
He bowed with unconcealed irony to the cobbler’s wife, and nodded to Simon, who expressed by a volley of motley oaths his exact feelings with regard to all the agents of the Committee of General Security.
“Six months of this penal servitude have we had,” he said roughly, “and no thanks or pension. I would as soon serve a ci-devant aristo as your accursed Committee.”