“Pardon me, monsieur,” said Monsieur Bernard, bowing to Godefroid, who returned his bow. “A thousand pardons for stopping you without having the honor of your acquaintance; but is it really your intention to take lodgings in that horrible house you have just left?” “But, monsieur--” “Yes, yes,” said the old man, interrupting Godefroid, with a gesture of authority. “I know that you may well ask me by what right I meddle in your affairs and presume to question you. Hear me, monsieur; you are young and I am old; I am older than my years, and they are sixty-seven; people take me for eighty. Age and misfortunes justify many things; but I will not make a plea of my whitened head; I wish to speak of yourself. Do you know that this quarter in which you propose to live is deserted by eight o’clock at night, and the roads are full of dangers, the least of which is robbery? Have you noticed those wide spaces not yet built upon, these fields, these gardens? You may tell me that I live here; but, monsieur, I never go out after six o’clock. You may also remind me of the two young men on the second floor, above the apartment you are going to take. But, monsieur, those two poor men of letters are pursued by creditors. They are in hiding; they are away in the daytime and only return at night; they have no reason to fear robbers or assassins; besides, they always go together and are armed. I myself obtained permission from the prefecture of police that they should carry arms.” “Monsieur,” said Godefroid, “I am not afraid of robbers, for the same reasons that make those gentlemen invulnerable; and I despise life so heartily that if I were murdered by mistake I should bless the murderer!” “You do not look to me very unhappy,” said the old man, examining Godefroid. “I have, at the most, enough to get me bread to live on; and I have come to this place, monsieur, because of its silent neighborhood. May I ask you what interest you have in driving me away?” The old man hesitated; he saw Madame Vauthier close behind them. Godefroid, who examined him attentively, was astonished at the degree of thinness to which grief, perhaps hunger, perhaps toil, had reduced him. There were signs of all those causes upon that face, where the parched skin clung to the bones as if it had been burned by the sun of Africa. The dome of the forehead, high and threatening, overshadowed a pair of steel-blue eyes,--two cold, hard, sagacious, penetrating eyes, like those of savages, surrounded by a black and wrinkled circle. The large nose, long and very thin, and the prominent chin, gave the old man a strong resemblance to the well-known mask popularly ascribed to Don Quixote; but a wicked Don Quixote, without illusions,--a terrible Don Quixote.