THE MARQUIS OF LETORIERE.
[CHAPTER I]
THE TAILOR
In 1769 there was in the Rue St. Honoré, not far from the Palais Royal, a small tailor's shop, having for its sign an enormous pair of gilt scissors, suspended above the door by an iron triangle.
Master Landry, proprietor of The Golden Scissors, a little lean, pale, and apathetic man, offered a striking contrast to his wife Madelaine.
She was a woman of thirty-five or forty years, robust and active, with hard features, and a gait like a man's, and her quick and imperious voice told that her dominion over her household was absolute.
It was eleven o'clock one dark, rainy day in December. Master Landry, seated on his counter, plied alternately his scissors and needle, in company with Martin Kraft, his apprentice, a big, heavy, phlegmatic German, about twenty years old, whose red and puffed-out cheeks, and long hair, more yellow than blonde, gave him a stupid air.
The tailor's wife seemed to be in a very bad humor. Landry and his apprentice maintained a prudent silence, until at length Madeleine snapped out at her husband, scornfully:
"I give up; thou hast no blood in thy veins; thou would'st allow thyself to be robbed of thy last customer; imbecile!"
Landry exchanged an elbow-touch and a glance with Martin Kraft, but kept quiet, handling his needle with redoubled dexterity.