powerful than all the rest put together. Ah, my dear!"

"Well?"

"Into what a wasp's nest you have thrust yourself!"

"And as yet not quite far enough, if you will follow me into it."

"Most certainly I will follow you where you like. Yet - "

"Well, yet - "

"While we have time, I think it will be prudent to turn back."

"But I, on the contrary, think the wisest course to take is to put
ourselves at once at the head of all these intrigues."

"You will never be able to do it."

"With you, I could superintend ten of them. I am in my element, you must
know. I was born to live at the court, as the salamander is made to live
in the fire."

"Your comparison does not reassure me in the slightest degree in the
world, my dear Montalais. I have heard it said, and by learned men too,
that, in the first place, there are no salamanders at all, and that, if
there had been any, they would have been infallibly baked or roasted on
leaving the fire."

"Your learned men may be very wise as far as salamanders are concerned,