"No," I retorted, "but there's a good cudgel to flatten you out with."
"And pray why?" he demanded without losing an atom of assurance. "You are angry because I have entered your house without permission. Why were not you at home? I knocked on the door and asked to light my pipe, a thing no one ever refuses. Silence gives consent, so I pulled the latch. Why did not you lock the door if you are afraid of thieves? I looked at the beds and saw the house was empty; I lighted my pipe, and here I am. What have you to say to that?"
So saying, as I tell you, he took up his gun as if to examine the lock, but it was really as much as to say, "If you are armed, so am I; two can play at that game."
I had an idea of aiming at him to make him respect me; but the longer I looked at his blackened face the more I was struck with his frank air and his lively, jovial eye, so that I ceased to be angry and felt only piqued. He was a young man of twenty-five, tall and strong, and if washed and shaved, would have been quite a handsome fellow. I put my gun down beside the wall and went up to him without fear.
"Let us talk," I said, sitting down by him.
"As you will," he answered, laying aside his gun.
"Is it you they call Huriel?"
"And you Étienne Depardieu?"
"How do you know my name?"
"Just as you know mine,—from our little friend Joseph Picot."