“And that remark,” said I, “comes oddly from the lips of a patriot.”
He questioned me with his eyes in a surly manner.
“Bah!” I cried; “are not Robespierre, Couthon, St Just in earnest? are not you in earnest? and do you not all put your heads into traps? But I beg you to take me out of La Souricière.”
He had recovered his composure while I spoke.
“Come, then,” he said; “thou art wanted down below. And as to that rascal—Mordi!” he chuckled, “he has run into a cul-de-sac on his way to hell; but at any rate he has saved the axe an extra notch to its edge.”
On the threshold of the room he stopped me and looked into my face.
“How much for a billet?” said he.
“You have one for me?”
“That depends.”
“But doubtless you have been paid to deliver it?”