"But what are your orders, or have you, too, a letter?" "That," he answered, with just such a little smiling nod as I had given him, "is my affair, and between me and the King. Your own words! Come, Monsieur, give it to me, and let me go." "It!" said I banteringly, for I was fool enough to play him further. "Is your Latin not rusty? And if it is rusty, may it not be wrong? Should your 'it' not be 'him'?" "Him?" he repeated. "Him? What do you mean? By God! I have it! It's the boy upstairs--it's the little Count himself! Monsieur, Monsieur, you fly at high game, and I offer you my apologies; in some things you are not such a fool as I took you to be. To lead him like a pet lamb with a ribbon, and into his own town, too! No violence, no noise, nothing indiscreet! Monsieur, I could not have done as well myself. Can a man say more?" "But the Latin?" said I. "What of the It, Master Scholar?" "Who said It? Not I. _That which you have brought_, was what I said; _That, That_, not It, and _That_ is the Count de Foix!" "And I am to return whence I came?" "So it seems, Monsieur, and I wish you joy when they find the boy does not return with you. I fear they'll hang you, faith of a gentleman! I fear they will." "Stop a minute, I'm not there yet. I was to wait the King's third letter, was I not?" "Yes, yes," he said impatiently. "You have had two already, and so the next must be the third--any fool can see that!" "Just so, dear Monsieur Volran; and it was a fool who saw it. Since when was his Majesty among the prophets? Yesterday the second letter came, came because the King was kept waiting, and yet this, written two months ago, foresaw it, and so the next will be the third. How, two months ago, could the King know, there would be need for a second and so promise a third? My compliments on your imagination, but you do not lie well." "Lie, Monsieur, lie?" "Bah! Never bluster with your sheath empty; bare hands cannot bully hard steel. God forgive us! but we all lie at times. I did awhile back when I said I knew no Latin. I know one tag--a worthy monk taught it to me a month ago, when, out hawking, the kite missed its stoop. How is this it ran? _Laqueo_--let me see; _laqueo Venantium_--ah! I forget. Like you, I am rusty. But I remember its meaning. Shall I translate, Monsieur scholar-tapster? It has something to do with an escape from the snare of the fowler." "Oh," he cried, stamping, "you shall pay for this!" With my hand upon the door I turned upon him. "Dare so much as lift a finger, dare so much as breathe a threat, and King's man though you are, bound up in the same bundle as me though you are, you'll find the Morsigny gallows waiting for you here at La Voulle; nor will Louis say more than, Curse him for a blundering ass! It is I who hold the King's orders, not you; cross me in my obedience at your peril!" and passing out, I struck the door noisily with the letter.