"They are not letters. They are addresses which I gave instead of visiting cards, as I had not had time to procure cards."
"Then the addresses are in your writing?"
"Yes," Pradès answered.
The police officer looked at them again; then, saluting the brigadier and his men, wished them good-night, and even added a little gesture, rather mocking, in the direction of the arrested man. Pradès made an angry, almost menacing, movement toward Bernardet. The guards standing about pulled him back, while the plump, smiling little man, caressing his sandy mustache and humming a tune, went out into the street.
As he reached the passage which led to his house this couplet came merrily from his lips as walked quickly along:
"Prends ton fusil, Gregoire,
Prends ta gourde pourboire,
Nos Messieurs sont partis
A la chasse aux perdrix."
One would have taken M. Bernardet for a happy little bourgeois, going home from some theatre through the deserted streets and repeating a verse from some vaudeville, rather than a police spy who had just secured a prize. He walked quickly, he walked gaily. He reached his home, where Mme. Bernardet, always rosy and pleasant, awaited him, and where his three little girls were sleeping. He felt that, like the Roman emperor, he had not lost his day.
He again hummed the quatrain, and, although not in a loud tone, still it sounded like a far off fanfare of victory in the gray fog of this Paris night.