went to find Maître Menard, to urge upon him that some one should stay with M. Étienne while I was gone, lest he swooned or became light-headed. But the surgeon himself was present, having returned from bandaging up some common skull to see how his noble patient rested. He promised that he would stay the night with M. le Comte; so, eased of that care, I set out for the Hôtel de Lorraine, one of the inn-servants with a flambeau coming along to guide and guard me. M. Étienne was a favourite in this inn of Maître Menard's; they did not stop to ask whether he had money in his purse before falling over one another in their eagerness to serve him. It is my opinion that one gets more out of the world by dint of fair words than by a long purse or a long sword.
We had not gone a block from the inn before I turned to the right-about, to the impatience of my escort.
"Nay, Jean, I must go back," I said. "I will only delay a moment, but see Maître Menard I must."
He was still in the cabaret where the crowd was thinning.
"Now what brings you back?"
"This, maître," said I, drawing him into a corner. "M. le Comte has been in a fracas to-night, as you perchance may have divined. His arch-enemy gave us the slip. And I am not easy for monsieur while this Lucas is at large. He has the devil's own cunning and malice; he might track him here to the Three Lanterns. Therefore, maître, I beg you to admit no one to M. le Comte—no one on any business whatsoever. Not if he comes from the Duke of Mayenne himself."
"I won't admit the Sixteen themselves," the maître declared.
"There is one man you may admit," I conceded. "Vigo, M. de St. Quentin's equery. You will know him for the biggest man in France."
"Good. And this other; what is he like?"