The Snowball Read Online Free

ready to conduct us to this woman's
house. When we have heard her we shall know what to do."
    I tried my utmost to dissuade him, pleading that his presence could
not be necessary, and might prove a hindrance; besides exposing his
person to a certain amount of risk. But he would not listen. When I
saw, therefore, that his mind was made up to go, and that as his
spirits rose he was inclined to welcome this little expedition as a
relief from the
ennui
which at times troubled him, I reluctantly
withdrew my opposition and gave the necessary orders. The King
dismissed his suite with a few kind words, and in a very short space
we were on our way, under cover of darkness, to the secretary's house.
    He lived at this time in a court off the Rue St. Jacques, not far from
the church of that name; and the house being remote from the eyes and
observations of the street, seemed not unfit for secret and desperate
uses.
    Although we found lights shining behind several of the barred windows,
the wintry night, the darkness of the court, and perhaps the errand on
which we came, imparted so gloomy an aspect to the place that the King
hitched his sword forward, while I begged him to permit the Swiss who
accompanied us to go on with us. This, however, he would not allow,
and accordingly they were left at the entrance to the court with
orders to follow at a given signal.
    On the steps, the King, who, to disguise himself the better, had
borrowed one of my cloaks, stumbled and almost fell. This threw him
into a fit of laughter; for no sooner was he engaged in an adventure
which promised to be dangerous than his spirits invariably rose to
such a degree as to make him the most charming companion in peril man
ever had. He was still shaking, and pulling me to and fro in one of
those boyish frolics which sometimes swayed him, when a sudden outcry
inside the house startled us into sobriety, and reminded us all too
soon of the business which brought us thither.
    Wondering what it might mean, I was about to rap on the door with my
hilt when the King put me aside, and, by a happy instinct, tried the
latch. The door yielded to his hands, and, slowly opening, gave us
admittance.
    We found ourselves in a gloomy hall, ill-lit, and hung with patched
arras. In one corner stood a group of servants. Of these some looked
scared and some amused, but all were so much taken up with the
movements of a harsh-faced woman, who was pacing the opposite side of
the hall, that they did not heed our entrance. A momentary glance at
this strange state of things showed me that the woman was Madame
Nicholas; but I was still at a loss to guess what she was doing or
what was happening in the house.
    I stood a moment, but finding she still took no notice of us, I
beckoned to one of the servants, and bade him tell his mistress a
gentleman would speak with her. The man went with the message; but she
sent him off with a flea in his ear, and screamed at him so violently
that for a moment I thought she was mad. Then it appeared that the
object of her attention was a door at the side of the hall; for,
stopping suddenly in her walk, she went up to it, and struck it
passionately with her hands.
    "Come out!" she cried. "Come out, you villain!"
    Restraining the King, I went forward myself, and, saluting her
politely, begged a word with her apart, thinking she would recognize
me.
    Her answer, however, showed that she did not. "No!" she cried, waving
me off, in the utmost excitement. "No; you will not get me away—I
know you. You are as bad one as the other." Then turning again to the
door, she continued, "Come out! Do you hear! Come out! I'll have no
more of your intrigues and your Hallots!"
    I pricked up my ears at the name "But, Madame," I said, "one moment."
    "Begone!" she retorted, turning on me so wrathfully that I fairly
recoiled before her. "I shall stay here till I drop; but I will have
him out and expose him. There shall be an end of his precious plots
and his Hallots if I have to go to