Jacques was a boy of twelve, lean, hungry-looking, and hard-featured, but as sharp as a weasel. He piloted me through the crowds, turned down alleys, shot through narrow courts, turning now to right now to left, till my head began to swim.
"Has monsieur heard the news?" he asked. "They think at the shop that I don't know, but I keep my ears open. There will be sport soon. They are going to put the Cardinal in an iron cage, and Anne of Austria in a convent. Then the people will rise and get their own. Oh, oh! it will be fine sport. No more starving for Jacques then. I shall get a pike—Antoine is making them by the score—and push my way into the king's palace. Antoine says we shall have white bread to eat; white bread, monsieur, but I don't think that can be true."
All the way he chattered thus, repeating scraps of information he had picked up, and inventing a great deal besides. Much of it I understood no more than if he had spoken in a foreign tongue, but I gathered that stirring work was expected by the denizens of the low quarters of the city.
"Faith," I thought to myself, "my poor mother would have little sleep to-night if she could see me now, wandering through these dens of vice and crime. Old Belloc's path to fortune does not seem easy to find."
Jacques suddenly brought me back to reality by exclaiming in his shrill voice, "Here we are, monsieur! This is the Rue de Roi."
The information rather staggered me, but I thanked him, and drawing out my slender purse, gave him a piece of silver. He fastened on it with wolfish eagerness and the next instant had disappeared, leaving me to find La Boule d'Or as best I could.
CHAPTER II.
La Boule d'Or.
"Faith," I muttered, "Raoul has a strange taste. One would think his golden ball would soon become dingy in this neighbourhood!"