He was followed by a man whom the imaginations of all folk, from those who shiver in Greenland to those who sweat in the tropics, would paint in the single phrase: _He was an unfortunate man_. From this phrase, everybody will conceive him according to the special ideas of each country. But who can best imagine his face--white and wrinkled, red at the extremities, and his long beard. Who will see his lean and yellow scarf, his greasy shirt-collar, his battered hat, his green frock coat, his deplorable trousers, his dilapidated waistcoat, his imitation gold pin, and battered shoes, the strings of which were plastered in mud? Who will see all that but the Parisian? The unfortunate man of Paris is the unfortunate man _in toto_, for he has still enough mirth to know the extent of his misfortune. The mulatto was like an executioner of Louis XI. leading a man to the gallows. “Who has hunted us out these two extraordinary creatures?” said Henri. “Faith! there is one of them who makes me shudder,” replied Paul. “Who are you--you fellow who look the most like a Christian of the two?” said Henri, looking at the unfortunate man. The mulatto stood with his eyes fixed upon the two young men, like a man who understood nothing, and who sought no less to divine something from the gestures and movements of the lips. “I am a public scribe and interpreter; I live at the Palais de Justice, and am named Poincet.” “Good!... and this one?” said Henri to Poincet, looking towards the mulatto. “I do not know; he only speaks a sort of Spanish _patois_, and he has brought me here to make himself understood by you.” The mulatto drew from his pocket the letter which Henri had written to Paquita and handed it to him. Henri threw it in the fire. “Ah--so--the game is beginning,” said Henri to himself. “Paul, leave us alone for a moment.” “I translated this letter for him,” went on the interpreter, when they were alone. “When it was translated, he was in some place which I don’t remember. Then he came back to look for me, and promised me two _louis_ to fetch him here.” “What have you to say to me, nigger?” asked Henri. “I did not translate _nigger_,” said the interpreter, waiting for the mulatto’s reply.... “He said, sir,” went on the interpreter, after having listened to the unknown, “that you must be at half-past ten to-morrow night on the boulevard Montmartre, near the cafe. You will see a carriage there, in which you must take your place, saying to the man, who will wait to open the door for you, the word _cortejo_--a Spanish word, which means _lover_,” added Poincet, casting a glance of congratulation upon Henri. “Good.” The mulatto was about to bestow the two _louis_, but De Marsay would not permit it, and himself rewarded the interpreter. As he was paying him, the mulatto began to speak. “What is he saying?”