"Most interesting of lackeys, how might you be useful to me?" inquired De
Berquin, continuing his mood of sinister jocularity.
How, indeed? I asked myself. Aloud I answered slowly, in order to have the more time to think:
"In your present enterprise, monsieur."
"The devil! What do you know of my present enterprise?" he asked, quickly.
I saw that I had at least awakened his interest in the idea that I might be worth using alive.
"I will tell you," I answered, "if you will first ask this unpleasant person behind me to step aside."
"Unpleasant person!" repeated Barbemouche, astonished at my audacity.
"You dog, do you speak in such terms of a gentleman?"
So he was under the delusion also that he possessed gentility.
"Stop, Gilles!" commanded De Berquin. "Go yonder, while I listen to this amusing knave. Let him talk awhile before he dies."
Barbemouche sullenly went over to the side of François, and stood there glowering at me. It was a relief to know that his sword-point was no longer at my back.