This idea tickled the young men exceedingly. They had little to fear from the police, unless it was the chance identification on the Place de la Concorde. But these things are rarely pushed.
Madame la Concierge was quickly arranged, her candle lighted. Then the other light was turned down.
When the door was slowly opened four police officers, headed by the commissary of the quarter, entered.
But they stopped abruptly on the threshold. The hideous skeleton with the candle confronted them. A sepulchral voice demanded,--
"Who knocks so loudly at an honest door?"
It is no impeachment of the courage and efficiency of the Paris police to say that the men recoiled in terror from this horrible apparition. So suddenly, in fact, that the two agents in the rear were precipitated headlong down the short flight. The other two vanished scarcely less hastily. A fifth man, who had evidently been following the agents at a respectful distance, received the full impact of the falling bodies, and with one terrified yell sank almost senseless on the stair.
This man was the cabman who had brought Jean Marot to Le Petit Rouge.
The veteran commissary, however, flinched only for an instant. Having served many years in the Quartier Latin, he was no stranger to the pranks and customs of medical students. The next instant he had his foot in the doorway, to retain his advantage, and was calling his men a choice assortment of Parisian names. To emphasize this he entered and gave Madame la Concierge a kick that caused her poor old bones to rattle.
"For shame!" cried young Massard, laughingly, turning up the light. "To kick an old woman!"
"Now here, gentlemen, students,--you are a nice lot!"
"Thanks! Monsieur le Commissaire," replied Lerouge, with a polite bow.
"You are quite aware, gentlemen," continued the stern official, "that you are responsible at this moment for any injury to my men?"
"No, monsieur," retorted Lerouge in his dry fashion; "but, if any bones are broken we'll set 'em."
"I want none of your impudence, monsieur! What's your name?"
"George Villeroy, 7 Rue du Pot de Fer, medical student, aged twenty-four, single, born at Tours."
Well these young roysterers knew the police formula! Armand Massard gave in his record at a nod. The veteran commissary wrote the replies down.