"Why, you are very welcome, Sir," answered Charles; "but if you do not want it, I pray you, in honesty, show me which is the Count de Blenau's hotel." "Well, I will show thee," said the servant; "I am e'en going thither myself, on the part of the Marquise de Beaumont, to ask after the young Count's health." "Oh, then, you are one of those who were with the carriage yesterday, when he was wounded in the wood," exclaimed the boy. "Now I remember your colours. Were you not one of those on horseback?" "Even so," answered the man; "and if I forget not, thou art the Woodman's boy. But come, prithee, tell us what is thy real errand with the Count. We are all his friends, you know; and selling him the wood is all a tale." Charles thought for a moment, to determine whether he should tell the man all he knew or not; but remembering the answer his father had furnished him with, he replied, "The truth then is, I carry him a note from a lady." "Oh, ho! my little Mercury!" cried the servant; "so you are as close with your secrets as if you were an older politician. This is the way you sell wood, is it?" "I do not know what you mean by Mercury," rejoined the boy. "Why he was a great man in his day," replied the servant, "and, as I take it, used to come and go between the gods and goddesses; notwithstanding which, Monsieur Rubens, who is the greatest painter that ever lived, has painted this same Mercury as one of the late Queen's[A] council, but nevertheless he was a carrier of messages, and so forth." [A] Alluding, no doubt, to the picture of the reconciliation of Mary de Medicis and her son Louis XIII. in which Mercury seems hand in glove with the cardinals and statesmen of the day. "Why, then, thou art more Mercury than I, for thou carriest a message, and I a letter," answered Charles, as they approached the hotel of the Count, towards which they had been bending their steps during this conversation. Their proximity to his dwelling, in all probability, saved Charles from an angry answer; for his companion did not seem at all pleased with having the name of Mercury retorted upon himself; and intending strongly to impress upon the Woodman's boy that he was a person of far too great consequence to be jested with, he assumed a tone of double pomposity towards the servant who appeared on the steps of the hotel. "Tell Henry de La Mothe, the Count's page," said the servant, "that the Marquise de Beaumont has sent to inquire after his master's health."