"A child, eh?" interrupted his hearer, continuing to eat, but fixing Mathieu with a very keen gaze. "An infant prodigy, I suppose?"
"No; just a little boy with his father or uncle. But he was overcome, and had to be taken away. His companion has indeed left his own meal unfinished, no doubt in order to soothe the terror which my description of tyranny had awaked in the childish breast."
"Is this susceptible infant staying in the inn?" inquired La Vireville carelessly.
"I believe so," replied the poet, who had already lost interest in his young hearer, and was itching to declaim the purple passage in question, of which he again stood on the brink. La Vireville made a gesture to intimate that he should do so, and diplomatically neglected his meal to listen.
"Bravo!" he exclaimed at the end. "Magnificent, citizen! You have the foes of our beloved country on the hip, indeed. Those lines about the émigrés, now!"
Mathieu smirked. Then he glowed. "I declare to you, citizen, that if I were to meet one of those scorpions—those vipers, as I have termed them—I would not hesitate a moment to——"
"To denounce him, of course," said La Vireville, helping himself to wine.
"No, citizen, to kill him with these hands!"
"Ma foi," said La Vireville gravely, "if you ply the sword, citizen, as ably as the pen, France may well be proud of you."
Mathieu, much flattered, was beginning an answer, when the door opened and the little boy's guardian reappeared. The poet turned round.