(2) Half an hour later, however, he had succeeded in clearing the room in earnest. Yet did he not himself depart, having regard to the possible advent of other guests, but remained awhile, running his hand through his dank hair, and casting up his eyes to the ceiling whenever the patron, scowling, looked in at the door. His patience was duly rewarded when, at about five minutes to eight, the host ushered in a tall man in a cloak, evidently a traveller. The newcomer ordered a meal, and went to sit at a table in a far corner. Mathieu took stock of him, and finally arose and approached him. "You are travelling, citizen?" La Vireville looked carefully at the speaker. He himself desired rather to ask than to answer questions, but the poet appeared harmless. Moreover, having traced Anne-Hilarion and his companion as far as Abbeville, and having already drawn blank at two inns in that town, he was glad of the chance of information. So he said quietly, "Yes, citizen. And you?" "Ah no; I inhabit Abbeville. You will not have heard of me, citizen, but I am not quite unknown, even in Paris. My name is Pourcelles--Mathieu Pourcelles. I write a little--verse. I wonder if I might presume? . . . You have the look of a lover of letters" (the phrase with which Mathieu was wont to approach any victim not absolutely bucolic). "I may?" And out came the manuscript of the Ode. La Vireville endured it, eating his omelette, and thinking fast. He was beginning to feel a little baffled. Anne and his escort had certainly come to Abbeville; the point was, had they already left it? It appeared, from the cautious inquiries which he had made along the road from Calais, that the travellers were but little ahead of him--a fact which, in spite of the nearly incredible haste which he had made, seemed almost too good to be true, and which, considering their twenty-four hours' start, he found it difficult to account for. It was risky to ask direct questions, yet he would shortly be driven to that course. But he had not reckoned for the vanity of an author. "I now come," said the gifted poet, simpering, "to a passage which, as recently as three-quarters of an hour ago, inspired tears in a member of my little audience. It is true that he was very young, but who shall say whether the pure heart of childhood----" "A child, eh?" interrupted his hearer, continuing to eat, but fixing Mathieu with a very keen gaze. "An infant prodigy, I suppose?" "No; just a little boy with his father or uncle. But he was overcome, and had to be taken away. His companion has indeed left his own meal unfinished, no doubt in order to soothe the terror which my description of tyranny had awaked in the childish breast." "Is this susceptible infant staying in the inn?" inquired La Vireville carelessly.