“Have you a trade or a handicraft, lad?”
“Not either.”
“Nor any means of support?”
“Quite sufficient for all my wants,” replied I, boldly; and at the same time producing my purse, well stored as it was with five-franc pieces.
“Ah, then, you belong to some of the émigrés? You are going to join your family?” asked he, but in a lower and more cautious voice.
“Don't you think that I have been candid enough already, friend?” said I; “and do you not know sufficient of my affairs, without asking me more?”
“Not if it be for more than mere curiosity,” said he, drawing nearer to me; “not if I ask from a sincere interest in you.”
“But I ought, perhaps, to hear something of him that questions me,” said I, affecting an amount of circumspection that was far from natural to me.
“Then go out upon the quay yonder, and ask who is Pierre Dubos. My character and my name are well known in Havre; you 'll not have to ask often without an answer.”
“Well, then, citizen, tell me what more you wish to learn about me. I 'll tell you whatever you like, if I only know it.”