In walking and riding about the streets of Paris I kept a lookout for Jacques Haret. I had not forgotten my promise to give him a good beating the next time I saw him, and felt conscientious scruples that I had not done it when I had met him the spring before. But the news he gave me on that occasion was so startling it put my duty out of my head. I had not the slightest doubt that some time or other he would drift back to Paris. Fellows of Jacques Haret’s kidney can no more keep away from Paris than cats can keep away from cream.
So I watched for him, and one evening, soon after the carnival, as I was walking along the Rue St. Jacques, I came face to face with Jacques Haret. It was dusk, but the lamps which hung across the street had not yet been lighted. Jacques Haret was stepping debonairly along, whistling cheerfully Sur le pont d’Avignon. I noticed, even in the dim February evening, that he was shabbily dressed, but bore the marks of good eating and drinking on his face. When we came face to face he involuntarily halted. I stepped up to him and said:
“Where will you take it?”
The fellow knew I meant the beating I had promised. I continued:
“Here in the public street, where we shall be recognized, arrested, and Count Saxe will see that I come to no harm, while you will cool your heels in the Châtelet prison where you belong; or in the Luxembourg gardens which are deserted now, and where I can beat you more at my leisure, but not the less hard?”
“In the Luxembourg gardens,” said the scoundrel, coolly, after a pause.
I have ever admired Jacques Haret’s courage and I admired it now. He knew I meant to thrash him, that I had the strength to do it, and that if he killed me Count Saxe would tear him limb from limb. He had lost that nice honor of a gentleman, which would make a man accept death rather than a blow, but reasoning philosophically, as a rogue often does, concluded to take his punishment as best he might. Kings often reason thus, but few private men do.
We marched along the dark street, Jacques Haret in front, I behind. He resumed his whistling of Sur le pont d’Avignon.
There were no lanterns inside the Luxembourg gardens. When we reached the spot light streamed from many of the windows of the palace, but it did not penetrate the far recesses of the gardens, behind the tall hedges and the summer houses. I motioned Jacques Haret to the farthest corner, behind a grove of dwarf cedars. Once there I began stripping off my coat, and told him to strip off his coat also.