"Wait a moment, wait, that's not all! I was looking after them as they went into the Petit-Nesle, when suddenly I heard the grating of a window-sash at my left. I turned; the window opened and out came Pagolo,--that brigand of a Pagolo!--who would have believed it of him with all his protestations, and his Paters and Aves?--out came Pagolo, and, after looking about as cautiously as Hermann, straddled the windowsill, slid down the gutter, and went from balcony to balcony until he reached the window--guess of whose room, viscount!" "How can I tell? was it Dame Ruperta's?" "Oh no! Scozzone's, nothing less! Scozzone, Benvenuto's beloved model,--a lovely brunette, my word for it. Can you believe it of the rascal, viscount?" "Indeed, it's most diverting," said Marmagne. "Is that all you saw?" "Wait a bit, wait a bit, my dear fellow! I have kept the best till the last, the best morsel for the _bonne bouche_; wait a bit, we aren't there yet, but we soon shall be, never fear!" "I am listening," said Marmagne. "On my honor, my dear fellow, it couldn't be more diverting." "Wait a bit, I say, wait a bit. I was watching my Pagolo running from balcony to balcony at the risk of breaking his neck, when I heard another noise, which came almost from the foot of the tree in which I was sitting. I looked down and saw Ascanio creeping stealthily along from the foundry." "Ascanio, Benvenuto's beloved pupil?" "Himself, my friend, himself. A sort of choir-boy, to whom one would give absolution without confession. Oh yes! that comes of trusting to appearances." "Why had Ascanio come out?" "Ah, that's just it! Why had he? that's what I asked myself at first, but soon I had no occasion to ask it; for Ascanio, after having made sure, as Hermann and Pagolo had done, that nobody could see him, took from the foundry a long ladder, which he rested against the shoulders of Mars, and up he climbed. As the ladder was on the opposite side from myself, I lost sight of him as he went up, and was just wondering what had become of him when I saw a light in the eyes of the statue." "What's that you say?" cried Marmagne. "The exact truth, my friend, and I confess that, if it had happened without any knowledge on my part of what had happened previously, I should not have been altogether at my ease. But I had seen Ascanio disappear, and I suspected that the light was caused by him." "But what was Ascanio doing at that hour in the head of the god Mars?"