"Impossible!"
"If the Englishmen do not appear?"
"Even so the citizen proconsul will have lost nothing. He will merely have failed to gain the twenty thousand francs. But the Kernogans will still be in his power and citizen Martin-Roget's ten thousand francs are in any case assured."
"Friend Jean-Baptiste," concluded Lalouët with his habitual insolent familiarity, "you had better do what citizen Chauvelin wants. Ten thousand francs are good ... and thirty better still. Our privy purse has been empty far too long, and I for one would like the handling of a few brisk notes."
"It will only be twenty-eight, citizen Lalouët," interposed Chauvelin blandly, "for commandant Fleury will want one thousand francs and his men another thousand to stimulate their zeal. Still! I imagine that these hard times twenty-eight thousand francs are worth fighting for."
"You seem to be fighting and planning and scheming for nothing, citizen Chauvelin," retorted young Lalouët with a sneer. "What are you going to gain, I should like to know, by the capture of that dare-devil Englishman?"
"Oh!" replied Chauvelin suavely, "I shall gain the citizen proconsul's regard, I hope—and yours too, citizen Lalouët. I want nothing more except the success of my plan."
Young Lalouët jumped down to his feet. He shrugged his shoulders and through his fine eyes shot a glance of mockery and scorn on the thin, shrunken figure of the Terrorist.
"How you do hate that Englishman, citizen Chauvelin," he said with a light laugh.