IV

THE OLD SCARECROW


Nobody in the quartier could quite recollect when it was that the new
Public Letter-Writer first set up in business at the angle formed by the
Quai des Augustins and the Rue Dauphine, immediately facing the Pont
Neuf; but there he certainly was on the 28th day of February, 1793, when
Agnes, with eyes swollen with tears, a market basket on her arm, and a
look of dreary despair on her young face, turned that selfsame angle on
her way to the Pont Neuf, and nearly fell over the rickety construction
which sheltered him and his stock-in-trade.

"Oh, mon Dieu! citizen Lepine, I had no idea you were here," she
exclaimed as soon as she had recovered her balance.

"Nor I, citizeness, that I should have the pleasure of seeing you this
morning," he retorted.

"But you were always at the other corner of the Pont Neuf," she argued.

"So I was," he replied, "so I was. But I thought I would like a change.
The Faubourg St. Michel appealed to me; most of my clients came to me
from this side of the river--all those on the other side seem to know
how to read and write."

"I was just going over to see you," she remarked.