A very deliberate stare, without uttering a word, was all the reply Gregoire returned to this speech; and then, addressing himself to the helpers, he gave some orders in German about the other trunks. Dalton waited patiently for some minutes, but no marks of attention showed that the courier even remembered his presence; and at last he said, “I 'm waiting to see that trunk put up; d' ye hear me?” “I hear ver well, but I mind noting at all,” said Gregoire, with a grin. “Oh, that 's it,” said Dalton, smiling, but with a twinkle in his gray eyes that, had the other known him better, he would scarcely have fancied, “that's it, then!” And taking the umbrella from beneath Andy's arm, he walked deliberately across the yard to where a large tank stood, and which, fed from a small jet d'eau, served as a watering-place for the post-horses. Some taper rods of ice now stood up in the midst, and a tolerably thick coating covered the surface of the basin. Gregoire could not help watching the proceedings of the stranger, as with the iron-shod umbrella he smashed the ice in one or two places, piercing the mass till the water spouted up through the apertures. “Have you any friend who live dere?” said the courier, sneeringly, as the sound of the blows resembled the noise of a door-knocker. “Not exactly, my man,” said Dalton, calmly; “but something like it.” “What is 't you do, den?” asked Gregoire, curiously. “I'll tell you,” said Dalton. “I'm breaking the ice for a new acquaintance;” and, as he spoke, he seized the courier by the stout leather belt which he wore around his waist, and, notwithstanding his struggles and his weight, he jerked him off the ground, and, with a swing, would have hurled him head foremost into the tank, when, the leather giving way, he fell heavily to the ground, almost senseless from shock and fright together. “You may thank that strap for your escape,” said Dalton, contemptuously, as he threw towards him the fragments of broken leather. “I will have de law, and de polizei, and de Gericht. I will have you in de Kerker, in chains, for dis!” screamed Gregoire, half choked with passion. “May I never see peace, but if you don't hold your prate I 'll put you in it! Sit up there, and mind your business; and, above all, be civil, and do what you 're bid.” “I will fort; I will away. Noting make me remain in de service,” said Gregoire, brushing off the dirt from his sleeve, and shaking his cap. “I am respectable courier travel wid de Fursten vom Koniglichen Hatisen mit Russen, Franzosen, Ostereichen; never mit barbaren, never mit de wilde animalen.” “Don't, now don't, I tell you,” said Dalton, with another of those treacherous smiles whose expression the courier began to comprehend. “No balderdash! no nonsense! but go to your work, like a decent servant.” “I am no Diener; no serve anybody,” cried the courier, indignantly. [Illustration: 222]