"I am not drunk," he said thickly and with comical solemnity. "I am not nearly so drunk as you think I am."
"We'll soon see about that," retorted Gorot. "Here!" he added, turning to the three ruffians at the farther end of the room. "One of you give me a hand. We'll put this lout the other side of the door."
There was more than one volunteer for the diverting job. One of the men without more ado seized the sleeper under the armpits. Gorot took hold of his legs, and together they carried him out of the room and deposited him in the passage, where he rolled over contentedly and settled down to sleep in the angle of the door even whilst he continued to mutter thickly: "I am not nearly so drunk as you think I am."
When the landlord returned to the coffee-room he was summarily ordered out again by M. de Trévargan, and he, nothing loth, accustomed as he was to his house being used for every kind of secret machinations and nameless plottings, shuffled out complacently—unastonished and incurious—and retired to the purlieus of the kitchen, leaving his customers to settle their own affairs without interference from himself.
IV
As soon as the door had closed on Alain Gorot, M. de Trévargan turned to the crowd of ill-clad loafers in the corner.
"Now that we are rid of that fellow at last," he said with marked impatience, "tell me just what you have done."
"We carried out your orders," replied one of the men, a grim-looking giant, bearded and shaggy like a frowsy cat. "We strewed more than a kilo of nails, bits of broken glass and pieces of flint across both the roads, at a distance of about a kilomètre from here, and then we covered up the lot with a thin layer of earth."
The others chuckled contentedly.
"When the sacré Corsican comes along in his fine chaise," said one of them with a coarse laugh, "he'll have two or three spanking bays dead lame as soon as they have pranced across our beautiful carpet."