“Come, my friend, you shall certainly say what has brought you here, ere you get away this time.”
“I am in search of some one,—I am looking for one of my acquaintances,” said I, hurriedly.
“And expected to find him here?” added he, half sneeringly.
“Here—anywhere,” said I, recklessly.
“Just so; I thought as much. Well, my lad, you had better give a more satisfactory account of yourself to the commissary. Come along with me to the police.”
“With all my heart,” cried I.
“Who are you? Whence do you come?” asked he, with somewhat of kindliness in his voice.
“These are questions you have no right to ask me, citizen,” replied I.
“Well, have I not a right to know why you have been four several times in my shop this forenoon, and never bought nor asked for anything?”
“That you shall hear freely and frankly,” said I; “I have a passport made out for England, whither I wish to go. The authorities require that I should have some reference to a citizen of Havre before they allow me to depart. I am a stranger here,—I know of no one, not even by name. The whole of this morning I have spent hurrying hither and thither to find out some one I have seen before, but in vain. All are strangers to me; none know me. In my wanderings, it may be that I have chanced to come here as often as you say,—perhaps I have done so in twenty places; for my head is distracted, and I cannot collect my thoughts. There, then, is the answer to your inquiry.”