and did not speak.

'Well,' I said, 'don't you think that if I pay I ought to give
orders, sir?'

'Who wishes to oppose your orders?' he muttered, drinking off a
bumper, and sitting down with an air of impudent bravado, assumed
to hide his discomfiture.

'If you don't, no one else does,' I answered. So that is
settled. Landlord, some more wine.'

He was very sulky with me for a while, fingering his glass in
silence and scowling at the table. He had enough gentility to
feel the humiliation to which he had exposed himself, and a
sufficiency of wit to understand that that moment's hesitation
had cost him the allegiance of his fellow-ruffians. I hastened,
therefore, to set him at his ease by explaining my plans for the
night, and presently succeeded beyond my hopes; for when he heard
who the lady was whom I proposed to carry off, and that she was
lying that evening at the Chateau de Chize, his surprise swept
away the last trace of resentment. He stared at me, as at a
maniac.

'Mon Dieu!' he exclaimed. 'Do you know what you are doing,
Sieur?'

'I think so,' I answered.

'Do you know to whom the chateau belongs?'