Having thus looked over the ground, he resolved to amuse himself at the expense of such companions.
"Let me see," he thought to himself, as the coucou went down the hill from La Chapelle to the plain of Saint-Denis, "shall I pass myself off for Etienne or Beranger?
No, these idiots don't know who they are.
Carbonaro?
the deuce! I might get myself arrested.

Suppose I say I'm the son of Marshal Ney?
Pooh! what could I tell them ?--about the execution of my father?
It wouldn't be funny.

Better be a disguised Russian prince and make them swallow a lot of stuff about the Emperor Alexander.

Or I might be Cousin, and talk philosophy; oh, couldn't I perplex 'em! But no, that shabby fellow with the tousled head looks to me as if he had jogged his way through the Sorbonne.

What a pity! I can mimic an Englishman so perfectly I might have pretended to be Lord Byron, travelling incognito.