"Oh! pardon me, pretty maid, but if I must go to the Hôtel de Santoval again--many thanks! I am not your man! I remember the way I was treated at the time of the last visit I paid you; I remember very well too that, after beating me outrageously with stirrup leathers, the lackeys said: 'This is how you will be received every time that you come to this house!'--After that, you may well be sure that I would not risk the end of my nose there for anything in the world!--Look you--I am entirely devoted to your lovely mistress, but more than all else I love my own shoulders, I have the warmest regard for my ribs, and I have no desire to be cudgelled again!" "You will not be asked to go to the Hôtel de Santoval again, although everything is changed there now." "Where are you taking me, then?" "Wherever you choose; select for yourself the place where you will await my mistress; she will meet you there, for she is most desirous to speak with you in secret, and to intrust to you a letter for the Comte de Marvejols. If you undertake to deliver the letter, she will give you money, as much as you ask." "As much money as I ask!--By Mercury! pretty lady's-maid, this deserves consideration!--Moreover, I am too gallant to refuse to hold an interview with your mistress, whom I know to be as generous as she is beautiful.--Faith! so much the worse for my new master; I will tell him that the spots stuck like the devil; I can always find some fable to tell him.--Let us be off." "Choose the place where you will await my mistress." "Let me see; I must try to think of a place where there are not too many passers, so that we may talk undisturbed. Yes; I have what we want--on Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, I know a place where there have been no houses built as yet; there is a hollow there, where one can talk as comfortably as in one's own house; and it is not far from madame la marquise's hôtel." "Let us make haste, then." Bahuchet and Miretta doubled their pace. The sometime clerk knew his Paris perfectly, and the streets one could take to lessen the distance. In a short time they reached Rue des Francs-Bourgeois. The little man stopped at a vacant lot, where building materials had been dropped. "This is the place; it is very convenient for a private conversation, you see." "It is well. Remain here, while I go to fetch my mistress." "She will not be long?" "I promise you that she will be here within half an hour." "Very good! Above all things, do not let her bring one of her tall lackeys with her! If I see one of them in the distance, off I go, and I give you my word that you will not catch me!" "Do you think that my mistress is setting a trap for you, Monsieur Bahuchet?" "No, pretty brunette, I certainly do not think that; but, look you, when one has been thrashed as I was, one may well retain some apprehension."