“I don’t know,” he said slowly, “that I am prepared to treat with you any longer. You are an intolerable bit of vermin that has annoyed the Committee of General Security for over two years now. It would be excessively pleasant to crush you once and for all, as one would a buzzing fly.”
“Pleasant, perhaps, but immeasurably foolish,” rejoined de Batz coolly; “you would only get thirty-five livres for my head, and I offer you ten times that amount for the self-same commodity.”
“I know, I know; but the whole thing has become too dangerous.”
“Why? I am very modest. I don’t ask a great deal. Let your hounds keep off my scent.”
“You have too many d—d confederates.”
“Oh! Never mind about the others. I am not bargaining about them. Let them look after themselves.”
“Every time we get a batch of them, one or the other denounces you.”
“Under torture, I know,” rejoined de Batz placidly, holding his podgy hands to the warm glow of the fire. “For you have started torture in your house of Justice now, eh, friend Heron? You and your friend the Public Prosecutor have gone the whole gamut of devilry—eh?”
“What’s that to you?” retorted the other gruffly.
“Oh, nothing, nothing! I was even proposing to pay you three thousand five hundred livres for the privilege of taking no further interest in what goes on inside this prison!”