"Put them? Why, in your kitchen, of course," and as the servant made a sign of refusal, he added: "I am sorry, but you must; besides, there's nothing for you to be afraid of; the men are handcuffed, and we shall not leave them. We are going to wait here for the magistrate who will examine them." The gendarmes had pushed their wretched captives in before them, two tramps of the shadiest appearance. Louise, who had gone mechanically to raise the lid of a kettle beginning to boil over, looked round at his last words. "The magistrate?" she said: "M. de Presles? Why, he is here now--in the library." "No?" exclaimed the sergeant, jumping up from the kitchen chair on which he had seated himself. "He is, I tell you," the old woman insisted; "and the little man who generally goes about with him is here too." "You mean M. Gigou, his clerk?" "Very likely," muttered Louise. "I leave the prisoners with you, Morand," said the sergeant curtly; "don't let them out of your sight. I am going to the magistrate. I have no doubt he will wish to interrogate these fellows at once." The gendarme came to attention and saluted. "Trust me, sergeant!" It looked as if Morand's job was going to be an easy one; the two tramps, huddled up in a corner of the kitchen opposite the stove, showed no disposition to make their escape. The two were utterly different in appearance. One was a tall, strongly built man, with thick hair crowned by a little jockey cap, and was enveloped in a kind of overcoat which might have been black once but which was now of a greenish hue, the result of the inclemency of the weather; he gnawed his heavy moustache in silence and turned sombre, uneasy looks on all, including his companion in misfortune. He wore hobnailed shoes and carried a stout cudgel. He was more like a piece of the human wreckage one sees in the street corners of great cities than a genuine tramp. Instead of a collar, there was a variegated handkerchief round his neck. His name, he had told the sergeant, was François Paul. The other man, who had been discovered at the back of a farm just as he was about to crawl inside a stack, was a typical country tramp. An old soft felt hat was crammed down on his head, and a shock of rebellious red and grey hair curled up all round it, while a hairy beard entirely concealed all the features of his face. All that could be seen of it was a pair of sparkling eyes incessantly moving in every possible direction. This second man contemplated with interest the place into which the police had conducted him. On his back he bore a heavy sort of wallet in which he stowed articles of the most varied description. Whereas his companion maintained a rigid silence, this man never stopped talking. Nudging his neighbour every now and then he whispered: