'The night is cold and there is no fire in your room.' While he ran to and fro with my cloak and bags, little Gil, to whom I had stood at St Sulpice's, borrowing ten crowns the same day, I remember, came shyly to play with my sword hilt.
'So you expected me back when you heard the news, Frison, did you ?' I said, taking the lad on my knee.
'To be sure, your Excellency,' he answered, peeping into the black pot before he lifted it to the hook.
'Very good.

Then now let us hear what the news is,' I said drily.
'Of the Cardinal, M.de Berault.' 'Ah! And what ?' He looked at me, holding the heavy pot suspended in his hands.
'You have not heard ?' he exclaimed in astonishment.
'Not a tittle.

Tell it me, my good fellow.' 'You have not heard that his Eminence is disgraced ?' I stared at him.

'Not a word,' I said.
He set down the pot.
'Then your Excellency must have made a very long journey indeed,' he said with conviction.

'For it has been in the air a week or more, and I thought that it had brought you back.