"Chaudoreille, do me the pleasure of remaining still. I know very well how to recognize her whom I came to meet without your help; although I haven't yet seen her, I am certain that I shan't make a mistake; but, hang it! if she doesn't come to this meeting, I shall send you to drink the water under the bridge, to teach you to do your errands better." Chaudoreille had not heard the barber's last words; he was already far away, but he returned precipitately, looking scared. "What is it now?" said Touquet. "A patrol of the watch, which I can see coming, and which is going to pass by us." "Well, what of that? What has the watch to do with us? It's not forbidden to walk on the bridge, and, even if they should see us abduct a young girl I can answer for it they'll hardly trouble themselves about that." "Haven't we a rather suspicious look?" "You make me ashamed of you." "I shall pretend to be laughing, to allay their suspicions." "Wait, perhaps this will give you more courage." So saying the barber kicked Chaudoreille; but the latter received it singing, contenting himself by rubbing the part attacked while executing his trills, because at that moment the watch was passing them. When the patrol had departed he breathed more freely, and cried,-- "They have taken us for simple troubadours." "They should have taken you for a fool. A plague on all poltroons! They are good for nothing except to spoil everything." "I'm not going to get angry at a matter which doesn't concern me; but on great occasions it seems to me that stratagem is often better than valor." The barber had begun to be impatient, when a young woman came on to the bridge, walking slowly and glancing from time to time about her. Chaudoreille had not perceived her, because he was in ambuscade at the side of the Rue des Deux-Ponts. Touquet approached the unknown, looked at her and saw that this really was the young girl whom the marquis had depicted; for her part, the damsel looked attentively at the barber, and seemed to wait for him to address her in words. "Are you not the Signora Julia?" said the barber in a bass voice, approaching the young girl. "And you the barber Touquet?" answered she, lifting to him her animated black eyes. The barber was surprised at hearing himself named by a person to whom he believed himself unknown, but, after having considered the young girl anew, he resumed,-- "Since you know me, you should also know that the Marquis de Villebelle has sent me to you." "The marquis is rather ungallant," answered Julia, "in not coming himself to a first meeting." "These great noblemen are not the masters of their time; besides, the marquis has no desire to converse with you about his love on this bridge." "Preferring, no doubt, his little house of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine?"