“Ay, but you heard what that chap said about the slaughter-house lane. I declare he almost frightened me into fits. But where are you going?”
“Out, to be sure. If you choose to remain—”
“Not I. Who knows but they may take a fancy to seek for me here, and carry me away again! I won’t part with the only Englishman I know in Paris, though I think it would be more sensible to remain quietly where we are.”
We threw ourselves into the stream of people which was rapidly setting in towards the Tuileries. Great events seemed to have happened, or at all events to be on the eve of completion. The troops were nowhere to be seen. They had vanished from the city like magic.
“Bon jour, Citoyen Bagsby,” said a harsh voice, immediately behind us. “I hear high accounts of your valour yesterday at the barricades. Allow me to congratulate you on your first revolutionary experiment.”
I turned round, and encountered the sarcastic smile of M. Albert the ouvrier. He was rather better dressed than on the previous evening, and had a tricolored sash bound around his waist. With him was a crowd of persons evidently in attendance.
“Should you like, Mr Bagsby, to enter the service of the Republic? for such, I have the honour to inform you, France is now,” continued the ouvrier. “We shall need a few practical heads—”
“Oh dear! I knew what it would all come to!” groaned Bagsby.
“Don’t misapprehend me—I mean heads to assist us in our new commercial arrangements. Now, as free-trade has succeeded so remarkably well in Britain, perhaps you would not object to communicate some of your experiences to M. Crémieux, who is now my colleague?”
“Your colleague, M. Albert?” said I.