"It is altogether pleasant, ami. She will not wait till twelve to-morrow. She has gone to denounce him. Get up. Here is a nice bite for thee. She is shrewd, our snake. If she plunders M. Grégoire,—and she will, too,—she knows what he will do when he is out. He will denounce her. The play is good, Toto. The money she will have, if we know her. But, mm ami, if he makes her believe through the door that he is the great Grégoire of the wart, and she lets him out, and is scared, and asks no pay, Toto, 't is nevertheless a scotched snake she will be. The Wart will want to be revenged for low diet and loss of the republic's time. Mordieu! Toto, let us bet on it."
He read his gazettes, and waited. At six that afternoon the Crab came home. At nine François went to bed. Twice he awakened, laughing; he was thinking about Grégoire. The cobbler came in at six with breakfast, and François warned him to be careful.
At ten in the morning Quatre Pattes appeared at her door, and chatted with one or two dames of the fish-market. She rattled her sticks, and talked volubly. She was in the best of humors.
No new thing took place till three o'clock, when two municipal guards paused at her door. She came forth, spoke to them, and went in, leaving the door open. A third joined them. They loitered about. Ten minutes went by. François grew more and more eager as he watched.
"Ho, ho, Toto," he exclaimed, "there was a noise! The fool! she has gone up alone to let him out."
It was true. Grégoire had yielded in all some three hundred francs, and, as ordered, had slipped the money under the door, piece by piece, while Quatre Pattes sat and counted it with eyes of greed. She came down and hid the last of it. Now she went up again, rather liking the errand. She was absolutely fearless. She opened the door, and stood aside. "Come out," she said, "little man."
Grégoire was past restraining his rage. "She-devil!" he cried, and struck at her in a fury of passion. He ran past her down the stairs, the terrible woman after him. She was wonderfully quick, but the man's fear was quicker. At the last stairway she found him beyond her reach, and, cursing him in fluent slang of the quarter, she threw one of her sticks at him. It caught him on the back of the neck, and he fell headlong into the hallway. In an instant he was up and staggering into the street. As he came forth two guards seized him. "In the name of the law!" Quatre Pattes came swiftly after him, screaming out: "Take him! I denounce him! He is an aristocrat!"
What she and François saw was unpleasant for her.
"Nom de Ciel! 't is the Citizen Grégoire!" cried the third guard.
Grégoire was for an instant speechless and breathless. The guards fell back.