He took me up peevishly.
“Eh, eh! voilà ce que c’est! Monsieur to me? Art thou not an aristocrat, then?”
I answered pregnantly, “The question in itself is a reflection upon him that signed this passport.”
He looked about him like a trapped creature, dumbly entreating the Fates for succour. It was my plain policy to harp upon the strings of his nerves.
“Well,” said I, “a citizen commissary, I perceive, must have the courage of his opinions; and I can only hope thine will acquit thee when the reckoning is called.”
He shifted in his chair; he spluttered little deprecatory interjections under his breath; he shot small furtive glances at his truculent following. Finally he bade all but us two out of the room, and the guard to their post at the barrier. The moment they were withdrawn grumbling, he opened upon me with a poor assumption of bluster—
“Thou art very big with words; but here I am clearly within my rights.”
“Are not my papers in order, then?”
“It would at least appear so.”
His lids rose and fell. Patently his self-possession was an insecure tenure.