'Who keeps the Fleur-de-lis, in the Rue d'Ecosse?'
'Yes.'
'I am his brother, M. Blane, and have had the pleasure of seeing you, and M. le Vicomte Dundrennan, and other gentlemen of the Garde du Corps Ecossais, there often.'
'Alas! times are changed with me now, my friend Martin; I am alike poor and unfortunate.'
'Take courage, monsieur; you have been here only seven days.'
'D—n, only seven!'
'We have had prisoners here for seven-and-forty, and yet they have been released at last—released when their minds had sunk to such apathy, however, that they would as readily have remained.'
'Martin, you torture me!'
'We had one for forty-six years in this very room; see, he has scribbled the walls all over with invocations of St. Fiacre, his patron, and the dates will show you an ordinary lifetime spent within this little place.'
'Martin,' said I, in a voice like a sob, 'I should die of this place in one month.'