Dossonville, with his loose amble and important tilt of head, gave the cabaret a "Salut!" and continued twirling in his hand for his only weapon an ivory baton a scant two feet in length. Behind him the watch-dogs paused, one grim, taciturn, and furtive, the other loquacious, florid of gesture, and loud, while, as a cur at the approach of a strange dog draws himself up snarling and apprehensive, Javogues and the three half started from their chairs.
Satisfied with the discomfiture of the Terrorists, Dossonville led his followers to the Place de la Revolution, where he found the execution over and the crowd, with a scattering hand-clap, dispersing.
On the terraces of the Tuileries a few spectators still lingered curiously, looking down on the scaffold that violently interrupted the peaceful vista of the woods beyond. Threading his way through the widening network of women, soldiers, spies, muscadins, and laborers, Dossonville perceived Louison, who, having at last quitted the environment of the scaffold, was returning toward the Cabaret de la Guillotine to dispose of her cockades.
"Well, Louison," he cried, "you have a bored air! It was stupid this afternoon, then? The show did not interest?"
"Nothing but a priest to-day—all priests die in the same way," she answered. "However, yesterday it was better. They guillotined twin brothers. That was something out of the ordinary." She added thoughtfully: "It's curious how alike men are on the scaffold."
All at once she perceived the two who had halted obediently at a distance of twenty paces. Dossonville, when her glance had traveled from them to him, and back and forth, in amazement and inquiry, opened his wide mouth and said with pride, indicating them with a flourish:
"Aren't they darlings, though? My assistants, my lambs, my watch-dogs!"
Louison, seized with a sudden, mad laughter, found a moment to say:
"Where, please, did you find such a pair of cutthroats?"