"Nay, nay," said the landlord, who had remained in the room, "worthy sergeant, you must not be too severe upon my young lodger. Consider his youth and inexperience. Echimillia is a tender-hearted man, and would not wish you to be hard upon him. Take a hundred pistoles and let him off."
The sergeant began to show symptoms of a relenting disposition, and expressed his pity of my youth and ignorance of the ways of Paris with so much tender-heartedness, that it overcame my gravity, and sitting down upon a chair I laughed till I cried. The two sergeants looked rather confounded; but the greffier, a little man, whose risible organs were apparently somewhat irritable, could not resist the infectious nature of my laugh, but began a low sort of cachinnation, which he unsuccessfully tried either to drown in a cough or stifle in the sleeve of his robe. The sympathy next affected the landlord, who, after looking wistfully first to one and then to another, with one eyebrow raised, and one corner of his mouth in a grin while the other struggled for gravity for near a minute, was at length overpowered by the greffier's efforts to smother his laughter, and burst forth, shaking his fat sides till the room rang. The sergeant at the door tittered; but the principal officer affected a fury that soon brought me to myself, though in a very different manner from that which he expected.
Starting upon my feet, I caught him by the collar, and knocking his bonnet off his head, exposed to view the very identical person of my hectoring guide of the night before, though he had ingeniously contrived to change completely the shape of his face, by cutting his immense beard into a small peak, shaving each of his cheeks, and leaving nothing but a light moustache upon his upper lip. "Scoundrel!" cried I, giving him a shake that almost tore his borrowed plumes to pieces, "what, in the name of the devil, tempted you to think you could impose on me with a stale trick like this?"
"Because you dined at a table d'hote in Flemish lace," replied the other sergeant, continuing to chuckle at his companion's misfortune. "But come, young sir, you must let him go, though you have found him out." And thereupon he threw back his robe, and grasped the sword which it concealed.
As I had imagined, my man of war was as arrant a coward as ever swore a big oath, and he trembled violently under my hands, till he saw his more valiant comrade begin to espouse his cause so manfully. He then, however, thought it was his cue to bully, and exclaimed, in his natural voice, "Unhand me, or, by the heart of my father, I'll dash you to atoms!"
"The devil you will!" said I, seizing the foot he had raised in an attitude calculated to menace me with a severe kick. The window was near and open; underneath it was a savoury dunghill from the stables at the side; the height about twelve feet from the ground; so, without farther ceremony, I pitched the valiant soldado out head foremost, and drew my sword upon his companion, who ventured one or two passes, in the course of which he got a scratch in his arm, and then ran downstairs as fast as he could after the landlord and the greffier, who had already led the way. Running to the window, however, from which I could see over the gate of the court into the street, I shouted aloud to the passengers to stop the sham sergeants.
The first, who, with my assistance, had gone out the shortest way--whether he was used to being thrown out of window and did not mind it, or whether the dunghill was as soft as a bed of down, I know not; but--by this time had gained his feet, and was half way down the street. Where the greffier had slunk to I cannot say; but the more pugnacious personage, who had drawn his sword upon me, was caught by the people attracted by my cries, as he was in the act of making the best use of his legs, after his arms had failed him. It would have given me pleasure, I own, to bring even one of such a set of impostors to justice, but I was disappointed; for, just as a porter and a vinegar seller were bringing him back to the inn, he suddenly shook them off, slipped the sergeant's gown over his head, and scampered away through a dozen turnings and windings, with a rapidity and address which smacked singularly of much practice in running off in a hurry.
After a hot chase, the porter returned to tell me that he could not catch the nimble-limbed cheat; and calling him up to my chamber, I bade him take up my packages, and prepared to leave the house, after examining the contents of each valise, from which I found nothing missing, though sufficiently disarranged to show that they had afforded amusement to others during my absence the night before. Had they met with the diamonds, it is probable that they would have spared themselves and me the trouble of the somewhat operose contrivance to which they had recourse; but these, fortunately placed in the very bottom of the valise, with several things of less consequence, had escaped their search.
As we were passing into the court, the respectable landlord presented himself cap in hand, delivered his account, and hoped I had been satisfied with my entertainment, and would recommend his house to my friends; while all the time he spoke there was a meaning sort of grin upon his countenance, as if he could hardly help laughing at his own impudence.
I answered him somewhat in his own strain, that the entertainment was what the reputation of his house might lead one to expect; and in regard to recommending it to my friends, that it was very possible I should have occasion to visit shortly the criminal lieutenant, when I would take care to commend it to his notice in the most particular manner, and point out its deserts to him with care.