The poor child, who had left home for the first time, and who had never experienced so many varying emotions in the course of one evening, suddenly felt cold. Was it the effect of the weather or of Coclès' story? Whatever it was he threw a final glance at the instrument, which, as the moonbeams faded, retreated into the night like a shadow, and then asked, with chattering teeth: "Are we far from the Lanterne?" "Faith, no; for here it is," replied Coclès, pointing to an enormous lantern hanging over the doorway, which lighted the street for twenty feet around it. "It's time," said the boy, with a shiver. And, running the rest of the way, he opened the door of the hotel and darted into the kitchen, where a great fire burning in an immense chimney-piece drew forth a cry of satisfaction from him. Madame Teutch answered the exclamation with a similar one, for, although she had never seen him, she recognized in him the young boy who had been recommended to her care, as she saw Coclès appear in turn on the threshold with his light. CHAPTER II THE CITIZENESS TEUTCH The citizeness Teutch, a fresh, fat Alsatian, thirty or thirty-five years of age, felt an affection almost maternal for the travellers Providence sent her--an affection which was doubly strong when the travellers were as young and pretty as was the boy now sitting beside the kitchen fire, where, for that matter, he was the only one. So, hastening toward him, and as he still shivered, holding out his hands and feet to the blaze, she said: "Oh, the dear little fellow! What makes him shiver so, and why is he so pale?" "Hang it, citizeness," said Coclès, with his hoarse laugh, "I can't tell you exactly; but I think he shivers because he is cold, and that he is pale because he nearly fell over the guillotine. He wasn't acquainted with the machine, and it seems to have had quite an effect upon him. What fools children are!" "Be quiet, you idiot!" "Thanks, citizeness; that's my _pourboire_, I suppose." "No, my friend," said Charles, drawing a little purse from his pocket and handing him a small coin, "here is your _pourboire_." "Thanks, citizen," said Coclès, lifting his hat with one hand and holding out the other for the money. "The deuce! white money; so there is still some left in France? I thought that it was all done for; but now I see, as citizen Tétrell says, that that is just a report started by the aristocrats." "Come, get along to your horses," said citizeness Teutch, "and leave us alone." Coclès went out grumbling. Madame Teutch sat down, and, in spite of some slight opposition on the part of Charles, she took him on her knee. Although, as we have said, he was nearly fourteen years old, he did not look more than ten or eleven.