"Yes, I—wait and see. Get out your tablets and take notes—spread your elbows, man! Do as I do, and the blessing of Saint Nicholas of Padua be upon all thieves and rascals—of whom we are two choice specimens!"
"Speak for yourself, Spaniard!" spluttered the other, having accidentally sucked the wrong end of his pen; "my uncle is not a cardinal, and as to my father——"
"He sells hanks of yarn, and cheats in the measurement!"
"I dare you to say so, you left-hand prince, you grease-spot on the cardinal's purple—you——"
"That will do," said the Abbé John calmly; "to-morrow I will give you thwacks when and where you like. But now listen, mark, learn, and in any case keep our good Master Anatole from so frequently glancing at that door. One would think he had the devil shut up within!"
"Impossible—quite impossible; he is loose and exceedingly busy outside there! Listen to the shots," said Guy, inclining an ear to the window.
Crack—crack! Bang!
The windows rattled.
"Hurrah for the People's Duke! Down with the King! Death to the Huguenots!—to the Barbets!—to the English! Death! Death! Death!"
"Lively down there—I wish we were up and away!" mourned the son of the ex-provost of the merchants, "but without arms and ammunition, what can fellows do?"