‘A soldier knocked the wind out of me with the back of his sword, but I had sense to keep on following till the carriage stopped—and there just was a crowd round the house-door! I must have been half-crazy else I wouldn’t have struck up “Si le Roi m’avait donné, Paris la grande ville!” I thought it might remind him.
‘“That is a good omen!” he says to Boney sitting all hunched up; and he looks straight at me.
‘“Abbé—oh, abbé!” I says. “Don’t you remember Toby and Hundred and Eighteen Second Street?”
‘He said not a word. He just crooked his long white finger to the guard at the door while the carriage steps were let down, and I skipped into the house, and they slammed the door in the crowd’s face.
‘“You go there,” says a soldier, and shoves me into an empty room, where I catched my first breath since I’d left the barge. Presently I heard plates rattling next door—there were only folding doors between—and a cork drawn. “I tell you,” some one shouts with his mouth full, “it was all that sulky ass Sieyès’ fault. Only my speech to the Five Hundred saved the situation.”
‘“Did it save your coat?” says Talleyrand. “I hear they tore it when they threw you out. Don’t gasconade to me. You may be in the road of victory, but you aren’t there yet.”
‘Then I guessed t’other man was Boney. He stamped about and swore at Talleyrand.
‘“You forget yourself, Consul,” says Talleyrand, “or rather you remember yourself—Corsican.”
‘“Pig!” says Boney, and worse.
‘“Emperor!” says Talleyrand, but, the way he spoke, it sounded worst of all. Some one must have backed against the folding doors, for they flew open and showed me in the middle of the room. Boney whipped out his pistol before I could stand up. “General,” says Talleyrand to him, “this gentleman has a habit of catching us canaille en déshabillé. Put that thing down.”