to the purpose the most noble Raoul de Bezers thought so too.
You understand!"

He leered at me and I did understand. I understood that
unwittingly I had rid Blaise Bure of a rival. This accounted for
the respectful, almost the kindly way in which he had--well,
deceived us.

"That is all," he said. "If you want as much done for you, let
me know. For the present, gentlemen, farewell!"

He cocked his hat fiercely, and went off at speed the way we had
ourselves been going; humming as he went,

"Ce petit homme tant joli,
Qui toujours cause et toujours rit,
Qui toujours baise sa mignonne
Dieu gard' de mal ce petit homme!"

His reckless song came back to us on the summer breeze. We
watched him make a playful pass at a corpse which some one had
propped in ghastly fashion against a door--and miss it--and go on
whistling the same air--and then a corner hid him from view.

We lingered only a moment ourselves; merely to speak to the boy
we had befriended.

"Show the books if anyone challenges you," said Croisette to him
shrewdly. Croisette was so much of a boy himself, with his fair
hair like a halo about his white, excited face, that the picture