Without stopping to examine my prize, or hesitating for a second, I entered the restaurant, and asked for M. Boivin.
‘Give your orders to me, boy,’ said a man busily at work behind the counter.
‘My business is with himself,’ said I stoutly.
‘Then you ‘ll have to wait with some patience,’ said he sneeringly.
‘I can do so,’ was my answer, and I sat down in the shop.
I might have been half an hour thus seated, when an enormously fat man, with a huge _bonnet rouge_ on his head, entered from an inner room, and passing close to where I was, caught sight of me.
‘Who are you, sirrah--what brings you here?’
‘Then speak!’ said he, placing his hand upon his immense chest.
‘How so, alone, sirrah?’ said he, growing suddenly pale; ‘I have no secrets--I know of nothing that may not be told before all the world.’
Though he said this in a kind of appeal to all around, the dubious looks and glances interchanged seemed to make him far from comfortable.
‘So you refuse me, then?’ said I, taking up my cap and preparing to depart.
‘Come hither,’ said he, leading the way into the room from which he had emerged. It was a very small chamber, the most conspicuous ornaments of which were busts and pictures of the various celebrities of the Revolution. Some of these latter were framed ostentatiously, and one, occupying the post of honour above the chimney, at once attracted me, for in a glance I saw that it was a portrait of him who owned the pocket-book, and bore beneath it the name ‘Robespierre.’
‘Now, sir, for your communication,’ said Boivin; ‘and take care that it is of sufficient importance to warrant the interview you have asked for.’
‘I have no fears on that score,’ said I calmly, still scanning the features of the portrait, and satisfying myself of their identity.
‘Look at me, sir, and not at that picture,’ said Boivin.
‘And yet it is of M. Robespierre I have to speak,’ said I coolly.
‘How so--of M. Robespierre, boy? What is the meaning of this? If it be a snare--if this be a trick, you never leave this spot living,’ cried he, as he placed a massive hand on each of my shoulders and shook me violently.
‘I am not so easily to be terrified, citizen,’ said I; ‘nor have I any secret cause for fear, whatever you may have. My business is of another kind. This morning, in passing out to his carriage, he dropped his pocket-book, which I picked up. Its contents may well be of a kind that should not be read by other eyes than his own. My request is, then, that you will seal it up before me, and then send some one along with me, while I restore it to its owner.’