"
"And they took him off?"
"Truly. They gagged him because he protested so much, and lugged him
off."
"To the Bastille?" he demanded, as if he could scarcely realize the
event.
"To the Bastille. In a big travelling-coach, between the officer and his
men. He may be there by this time."
He looked at me as if he were still not quite able to believe the thing.
"It is true, monsieur. If I were inventing it I could not invent
anything better; but it is true."
"Certes, you could not invent anything better! Nor anything half so
good. If ever there was a case of the biter bit--" he broke off,
laughing.
"Monsieur, you know not half how funny it was. Had you seen their
faces--the more Lucas swore he was not Comte de Mar, the more the
officer was sure he was."
"Felix, you have all the luck. I said this morning you should go about
no more without me. Then I send you off on a stupid errand, and see what
you get into!"
"Monsieur, I put it to you: Had you been there, how could Lucas have
been arrested for Comte de Mar?"
"He won't stay arrested long--more's the pity."
"No," I said regretfully; "but they may keep him overnight."
"Aye, he may be out of mischief overnight. I am happy to say that my
face is not known at the Bastille."
"Nor his, I take it. I thought from what I heard last night that he had
never been in Paris save for a while in the spring, when he lay perdu.
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