So amazed was I that, for the moment, I only stared and then I stirred him with my foot.
“Be off!” I exclaimed sharply, tried beyond prudence.
“Be off, yourself!” retorted Michaud insolently.
I fairly choked with rage. “You impudent puppy,” I said, “how dare you?”
“How dare I?” said he; “and what are you? You are Raoul, the apprentice, and I am Michaud, the apprentice, and a better goldsmith than you, I’ll warrant!”
This was too much; my disguise had cost me too dearly already, and the varlet’s insolence made me blaze forth into fury.
“Get up!” I said fiercely. “I am neither Raoul nor the apprentice, sirrah, and you know it! Try not my patience too far, or I’ll break your head for your pains.”
Something in my face cowed him, though the fellow usually was bold enough. He rose sullenly.
“I care not!” he said gruffly; “you are one moment an apprentice and the next moment ‘monsieur.’ How can an honest man know what you are?” and he shot a look of suspicion at me.
I disdained to tell him who I was, although I did not fear betrayal, or care for it, but I ordered him out of the room, and then, taking the disputed chair, I fell to questioning my new protégé. Maluta had watched me while I talked with Michaud, and though he understood no French, I think the little beast read our gestures and expressions so well that he understood the gist of the matter, and I saw him studying my face, while we talked together, much as a mariner studies a new-made chart of a dangerous coast. A few well-directed questions drew forth the creature’s history, in substance, at least. He was one of the court dwarfs, or had been, and the Czar Feodor had given him to the Boyar Kurakin, who had virtually discarded him, and he had, for the last few months, got his food where he could, mainly through the charity of cooks and scullions, for these little creatures were veritable waifs of fortune. That he might be useful to me I could not doubt, for he had, of course, every court intrigue at his fingers’ ends; but that he would also be a nuisance and a charge upon me was equally plain, yet I never felt less inclined to turn a poor waif into the street. Moreover, he was infinitely amusing, for that night while Maître le Bastien and I supped together, he danced for us and performed a dozen monkeyish tricks with tireless energy. And, whether I would or no, he attached himself to me; he watched my moods, he carried my cloak and my sword, he was even ready to change my shoes, or to run my errands, and after a day or two I began to tolerate him and even to find him useful. I little dreamed then, however, how useful he was to be.