"Anywhere."
"I will go at my hatter."
As the apothecary moved about his shop awaiting Raoul's return, his own disaster became once more the subject of his anxiety. He noticed that almost every person who passed looked in. "This is the place,"--"That is the man,"--how plainly the glances of passers sometimes speak! The people seemed, moreover, a little nervous. Could even so little a city be stirred about such a petty, private trouble as this of his? No; the city was having tribulations of its own.
New Orleans was in that state of suppressed excitement which, in later days, a frequent need of reassuring the outer world has caused to be described by the phrase "never more peaceable." Raoul perceived it before he had left the shop twenty paces behind. By the time he reached the first corner he was in the swirl of the popular current. He enjoyed it like a strong swimmer. He even drank of it. It was better than wine and music mingled.
"Twelve weeks next Thursday, and no sign of re-cession!" said one of two rapid walkers just in front of him. Their talk was in the French of the province.
"Oh, re-cession!" exclaimed the other angrily. "The cession is a reality. That, at least, we have got to swallow. Incredulity is dead."
The first speaker's feelings could find expression only in profanity.
"The cession--we wash our hands of it!" He turned partly around upon his companion, as they hurried along, and gave his hands a vehement dry washing. "If Incredulity is dead, Non-participation reigns in its stead, and Discontent is prime minister!" He brandished his fist as they turned a corner.
"If we must change, let us be subjects of the First Consul!" said one of another pair whom Raoul met on a crossing.
There was a gathering of boys and vagabonds at the door of a gun-shop. A man inside was buying a gun. That was all.