"Yes, yes," said I, "one must be well appointed in soul and body
when one sups with his Excellency and Monsieur Doltaire."
"Limed inside and chalked outside," he retorted gleefully. "But
M'sieu' Doltaire needs no lime, for he has no soul. No, by Sainte
Helois! The good God didn't make him. The devil laughed, and that
laugh grew into M'sieu' Doltaire. But brave!--no kicking pulse is
in his body."
"You will send for Voban--now?" I asked softly.
He was leaning against the door as he spoke. He reached and put
the tumbler on a shelf, then turned and opened the door, his face
all altered to a grimness.
"Attend here, Labrouk!" he called; and on the soldier coming, he
blurted out in scorn, "Here's this English captain can't go to
supper without Voban's shears to snip him. Go fetch him, for I'd
rather hear a calf in a barn-yard than this whing-whanging for
'M'sieu' Voban!'"
He mocked my accent in the last two words, so that the soldier
grinned, and at once started away. Then he shut the door, and
turned to me again, and said more seriously, "How long have we
before Monsieur comes?"--meaning Doltaire.
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