"My father was a gentleman."
"Your father!—yes—"
"And a Seigneur!—"
"A Seigneur truly!"
"And I mean to be one!" said the boy suddenly, closing his fists.
"Oh, oh! So that's it?" derisively. "You! A Seigneur? Whose mother—"
"Who could teach me?" Determined, but with a trace of color on his brown cheek, the boy looked down.
"Who?" The man began to recover from his surprise. "That's not so easy to tell. But if you must know—well, there's Gabriel Gabarie, for one, a poet of the people. He might do it—although there's talk of cutting off his head—"
"What for?"
"For knowing how to write."