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* * * * Five paces by four and a half." With such scraps tossing

and rolling upward from the depths of his mind, the prisoner

walked faster and faster, obstinately counting and counting; and

the roar of the city changed to this extent--that it still rolled

in like muffled drums, but with the wail of voices that he knew,

in the swell that rose above them.

CHAPTER II. The Grindstone

Tellson's Bank, established in the Saint Germain Quarter of

Paris, was in a wing of a large house, approached by a courtyard

and shut off from the street by a high wall and a strong gate.

The house belonged to a great nobleman who had lived in it until

he made a flight from the troubles, in his own cook's dress, and

got across the borders. A mere beast of the chase flying from

hunters, he was still in his metempsychosis no other than the

same Monseigneur, the preparation of whose chocolate for whose

lips had once occupied three strong men besides the cook in

question.