In vain did he repeat the injunction in every tone,--anger, furious anger, the drunkenness of blood demanding blood enveloped him. His first impulse was to stop a cab and hurl himself into it, in order to escape the irritating street, to rid his body of the necessity of walking and choosing a path--to stop a cab as for a wounded man. But at that hour of general home-coming the square was crowded with hundreds of victorias, caleches, coupes, descending from the resplendent glory of the Arc-de-Triomphe toward the purple freshness of the Tuileries, crowding closely upon one another down the inclined surface of the avenue to the great cross-roads where the motionless statues, standing firmly on their pedestals with their wreath-encircled brows, watched them diverge toward Faubourg Saint-Germain, Rue Royale and Rue de Rivoli. Jansoulet, newspaper in hand, made his way through the uproar, without thinking of it, bending his steps instinctively toward the club, where he went every day to play cards from six to seven. He was a public man still; but intensely excited, talking aloud, stammering oaths and threats in a voice that suddenly became soft once more as he thought of the dear old woman.--To think of rolling her in the mire too! Oh! if she should read it, if she could understand! What punishment could he invent for such an infamous outrage? He reached Rue Royale, where equipages of all sorts returning from the Bois bowled swiftly homeward, with whirling axles, visions of veiled women and children's curly heads, bringing a little vegetable mould to the pavements of Paris and whiffs of spring mingled with the perfume of rice-powder. In front of the Ministry of Marine, a phaeton perched very high upon slender wheels, bearing a strong resemblance to a huge field-spider, the little groom clinging behind and the two persons on the box-seat forming its body, came very near colliding with the sidewalk as it turned. The Nabob raised his head, and restrained an exclamation.