The maire soon appeared, his night-cap being replaced by a small black
velvet skull-cap, and his lanky figure enveloped in a tarnished silk
dressing-gown; he permitted us to be seated, while the gen-d'arme
recounted the suspicious circumstances of our travelling, and produced
the order to arrest an Englishman and his wife who had arrived in one of
the late Boulogne packets, and who had carried off from some
banking-house money and bills for a large amount.

"I have no doubt these are the people," said the gen-d'arme; "and here is
the 'carte descriptive.' Let us compare it--'Forty-two or forty-three
years of age.'"

"I trust, M. le Maire," said I, overhearing this, "that ladies do not
recognize me as so much."

"Of a pale and cadaverous aspect," continued the gen-d'arme.

Upon this the old functionary, wiping his spectacles with a snuffy
handkerchief, as if preparing them to examine an eclipse of the sun,
regarded me fixedly for several minutes, and said--"Oh, yes, I perceive
it plainly; continue the description."

"Five feet three inches," said the gen-d'arme.

"Six feet one in England, whatever this climate may have done since."

"Speaks broken and bad French."

"Like a native," said I; "at least so said my friends in the chaussee
D'Antin, in the year fifteen."