Pagina 564 van 896

The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing the Bank,

there was a general set of the current of talkers past Mr.

Lorry's desk. He held the letter out inquiringly; and Monseigneur

looked at it, in the person of this plotting and indignant

refugee; and Monseigneur looked at it in the person of that

plotting and indignant refugee; and This, That, and The Other,

all had something disparaging to say, in French or in English,

concerning the Marquis who was not to be found.

"Nephew, I believe--but in any case degenerate successor--of the

polished Marquis who was murdered," said one. "Happy to say, I

never knew him."

"A craven who abandoned his post," said another--this Monseigneur

had been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and half suffocated, in

a load of hay--"some years ago."