“My calling brings me into contact with a rum lot of people,” said the young fellow at last, “and I suppose all of us make enemies without knowing it.”
With this vague elucidation the little skipper was forced to content himself. He gave a grunt of acquiescence, and walked forward to superintend the catheading of the anchor.
CHAPTER XXVII. IN THE RUE ST. GINGOLPHE AGAIN
One would almost have said that the good citizen Jacquetot was restless and disturbed. It was not that the little tobacco shop left aught to be desired in the way of order, neither had the tobacconist quitted his seat at the window-end of the counter. But he was not smoking, and at short intervals he drew aside the little red curtain and looked out into the quiet Rue St. Gingolphe with a certain eagerness.
The tobacconist was not in the habit of going to meet things. He usually waited for them to come to him. But on this particular evening of September in a year which it is not expedient to name, he seemed to be looking out into the street in order that he might not be taken by surprise in the event of an arrival. Moreover he mopped his vast forehead at unnecessarily frequent intervals, just as one may note a snuff-taker have recourse to that solace more frequently when he is agitated than when a warm calm reigns within his breast.
“So quiet—so quiet,” he muttered, “in our little street—and in the others—who knows? It would appear that they have their shutters lowered there.”
He listened intently, but there was no sound except the clatter of an occasional cart or the distant whistle of a Seine steamer.
Then the tobacconist returned to the perusal of the Petit Journal. Before he had skimmed over many lines, he looked up sharply and drew aside the red curtain. Yes! It was some one at last. The footsteps were hurried and yet hesitating—the gait of a person not knowing his whereabouts. And yet the man who entered the shop a moment later was evidently the same who had come to the citizen Jacquetot when last we met him.