The distance from the dwelling of the mercenary leader to the convent was but short; and the people of Paris were well accustomed to see parties of soldiers pass through their streets: but the indescribable pleasure of staring, in this instance, as in all others, collected a little crowd round the centre of bustle; and the gates of the Jacobins, as they opened to receive St. Real, were surrounded by between twenty and thirty persons of different conditions. To those who have eaten sufficiently of the tree of good and evil in a great capital to know _that they are naked_, the presence of a gaping mob to witness the fact of their being dragged along like culprits by a party of rude soldiers, would be a subject of annoyance. St. Real felt injured, but not ashamed or afraid; and fixing his eye upon the most respectable personage of the crowd, he suddenly stopped where he stood, and, ere any one could prevent him, exclaimed, in a loud and distinct voice, "My friend, if the Duke of Mayenne be in Paris, you will serve both him and me by telling him that the Marquis of St. Real is here detained, contrary to the Duke's safe-conduct and his honour." "You will tell him no such thing, as you value your ears!" shouted Albert of Wolfstrom, fixing his eyes upon the Parisian with a marking glance, which seemed to intimate that he would not be easily forgotten by the wrath of the German leader in case of disobedience. The Parisian drew back, determined from the very first to practise that sort of wisdom which those long resident in great cities, and much habituated to scenes of contention and intrigue, do not fail to acquire; namely, to meddle with nothing that does not personally concern them. There was another person present, however, whose diminutive stature, and the simplicity of garb which he had assumed, combined to conceal him from the notice of either St. Real or the mercenary leader; no other, indeed, than the young Marquis's dwarf page, Bartholo; who, peeping through the open spaces between the other personages that formed the little crowd, saw and heard all that passed without attracting notice himself. Slipping out at once from amongst the rest, he made his way down the street, holding one of his usual muttered consultations with himself. "Now, shall I tell Mayenne," he said, "that the great baby is caught, and shut up here in the Jacobins, like a young imprudent rat, in a politic rat-trap; or shall I let him lie there for his pains, till that spoilt boy, D'Aubin, has married the other fair-haired baby, and that matter is irrevocable?"