"A fig for the Cardinal," I cried irritably. "I am in need of some supper, and a bed. You don't suppose I want to walk about the streets all night." "But it seems so strange! First it is the Palais Royal, and then La Boule d'Or. However, it is none of my business. Monsieur knows his own mind. Jacques," and he called to a boy standing just inside the shop, "show monsieur to the Rue de Roi." Jacques was a boy of twelve, lean, hungry-looking, and hard-featured, but as sharp as a weasel. He piloted me through the crowds, turned down alleys, shot through narrow courts, turning now to right now to left, till my head began to swim. "Has monsieur heard the news?" he asked. "They think at the shop that I don't know, but I keep my ears open. There will be sport soon. They are going to put the Cardinal in an iron cage, and Anne of Austria in a convent. Then the people will rise and get their own. Oh, oh! it will be fine sport. No more starving for Jacques then. I shall get a pike--Antoine is making them by the score--and push my way into the king's palace. Antoine says we shall have white bread to eat; white bread, monsieur, but I don't think that can be true." All the way he chattered thus, repeating scraps of information he had picked up, and inventing a great deal besides. Much of it I understood no more than if he had spoken in a foreign tongue, but I gathered that stirring work was expected by the denizens of the low quarters of the city. "Faith," I thought to myself, "my poor mother would have little sleep to-night if she could see me now, wandering through these dens of vice and crime. Old Belloc's path to fortune does not seem easy to find." Jacques suddenly brought me back to reality by exclaiming in his shrill voice, "Here we are, monsieur! This is the Rue de Roi." The information rather staggered me, but I thanked him, and drawing out my slender purse, gave him a piece of silver. He fastened on it with wolfish eagerness and the next instant had disappeared, leaving me to find La Boule d'Or as best I could. CHAPTER II. La Boule d'Or. "Faith," I muttered, "Raoul has a strange taste. One would think his golden ball would soon become dingy in this neighbourhood!" The Rue de Roi was really a narrow lane, with two rows of crazy buildings looking as if they had been planned by a lunatic architect. The street itself was only a few feet wide, and the upper storeys of the opposite houses almost touched. But in spite of its air of general ruin, the Rue de Roi was evidently a popular resort. Crowds of people went to and fro; sturdy rogues they appeared for the most part, and each man openly carried his favourite weapon--pike, or sword, or halberd. Some belonged to the bourgeois or shopkeeping class. These, wrapped in long black cloaks, moved softly, speaking in low tones to groups of coopers, charcoal-sellers, and men of such-like occupations.