"I have no doubt, monsieur," he said to me, "that the passport is in perfect order, but I should like to see your signature and any other papers you may have about you that may establish your identity." I produced a washing bill, and the last letter I had received from my father. He looked at these and then selected a thick-set volume from the bookcase. "Mo-sche-les," he said, as he turned over the pages, evidently to assure himself whether my name figured in the register of criminals. Then, turning an inquisitorial eye on me, he sat down to cross-question me, his fingers all the while beating a little bureaucratic tattoo on his knees. I felt as innocent as ever I had felt in my life, and strong in my reliance on Baron Hyde and the British fleet.
"So you are an Englishman?" he asked. "And where was your father born?" "In Prague," I answered. "Quite right," he said, with a glance at the book; "in Prague, in 1794. You are the man;" and before I could say anything, he had got up, and calling to a young lady in the next room, he said, "Just come here, my dear, and look. This is Moscheles' handwriting. Is it not a curious coincidence, just when you are studying the Rondo brillant and the Sonata? This is Monsieur Felix Moscheles, his son.—My daughter, Mademoiselle Julie, messieurs."
It was a very pleasant and timely coincidence. My blouse blushed, I suppose, but Mademoiselle Julie was too polite to notice it. Monsieur le Maire said—
"Well, as I have been officially called upon to find you a lodging, I may as well walk with you to the Hôtel de la Poste, and see that you get a comfortable one. When you have rested, you must come round and take a little supper and music with us."
Our arrival, escorted by the gensdarmes, had caused considerable excitement amongst the natives; our reappearance under the wing of Monsieur le Maire, with whom we were evidently on terms of easy familiarity, at once dispelled all doubts as to our character, and not only were first impressions wiped out, but we took position as the recognised heroes of the day. Besides thus rehabilitating us, Monsieur le Maire profusely apologised for the gensdarmes' blunder.
"The fact is," he said, "they have instructions to look out for two young men who are wanted, and who are supposed to be in the neighbourhood, so they are all on the alert." To which Dupont added—
"Yes, I quite see; if they just weed out all the wrong ones, they can then easily lay hands on the real culprits."
"Il y a de cela," said the Maire good-naturedly.
We spent a very pleasant evening with our friend and his family. The daughter played me the Rondo brillant and the Sonata, both early works of my father's that I was not quite as familiar with as I felt I must pretend to be. Dupont did a little pretending too, I think, for he got on splendidly with the mother by taking a lively interest in the pedigrees of the leading families in the neighbourhood.
Neither of us fell in love with the daughter, as one of us, if not both, should have done, to make a good story of it; nor, to the best of my knowledge, did Mademoiselle Julie lose her heart to either of us.