Æsop still restrained him. "You can do me a favor." Breant eyed the impertinent hunchback with disfavor. "Why should I do you a favor, Æsop the Second?" The hunchback explained, gayly: "In the first place, because I am the guest of his Majesty the King. In the second place, because I am the confidential devil of his Highness the Prince de Gonzague. But my third reason is perhaps better." As he spoke he took a well-filled purse from his pocket and tossed it lightly from one hand to the other, looking at Breant with a sneering smile. Breant would have been no true servant of the time if he had not liked money for the sake of the pleasure that money could give; Breant would have been no true servant of the time if he had not been always in want of money. He eyed the purse approvingly, and his manner was more amiable. "What do you want?" he asked. Æsop made his wishes clear. "There is a little lodge yonder in the darkness at the end of that alley, hard by the small gate that is seldom used. You know the gate, for you sometimes used to wait in that little lodge when a late exalted personage chose to walk abroad incognito." Breant frowned at him. "You know much, Master Æsop." Æsop shrugged his shoulders. "I am a wizard. But it needs no wizard to guess that, as the exalted personage is no longer with us, he will not walk abroad to-night, and you will not have to yawn and doze in the lodge till he return." "What then?" asked Breant. Æsop lowered his voice to a whisper. "Let me have the key of the little lodge for to-night." Breant lifted his hands in protest. "Impossible!" he said. Æsop shook his head. "I hate that word, Monsieur Breant. 'Tis a vile word. Come now, twenty louis and the key of the lodge for an hour after midnight." Breant looked at the purse and looked at the hunchback. "Why do you want it?" he asked. Æsop laughed mockingly. "Vanity. I wish to walk this ball like a gentleman. I have fine clothes; they lie now in a bundle on the lodge step. If I had the key I could slip inside and change and change again and enjoy myself, and no one the worse or the wiser." The purse seemed to grow larger to Breant's eyes, and his objections to dwindle proportionately. "A queer whim, crookback," he said. Æsop amended the phrase: "A harmless whim, and twenty louis would please the pocket." Breant slipped his hand into a side-pocket, and, producing a little key, he handed it to Æsop. "There's the key, but I must have it back before morning." Æsop took the key, and the purse changed owners. "You shall," he promised. "Good. Now I shall make myself beautiful." Breant looked at him good-humoredly. "Good sport, Æsop the Second." He turned and disappeared into the tent. Æsop, looking at the key with satisfaction, murmured to himself: "The best."