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"I'll tell you what you are; you are a liar! a liar, man, that is what you are! Why, you fool, I am the Mayor of Bottitort myself. Now, do you see how you have wasted yourself? Out of my way! Jehan, follow me in. I shall look into this. There is some knavery here, but if Simon Grabot cannot get to the bottom of it the Mayor of Bottitort will. Follow me, I say. My servant indeed? Come, come!"
"You madman! you idiot!" he continued, as light broke in upon him, and he saw that it was indeed on a fool's errand that he had been roused so early. "Is this your conspiracy? Have you dared to bring me here " But I thought that it was time to interfere. "The truth is," I said, "that M. Grabot here is not so much to blame.
La Trape fell into an attitude behind me; and the Breton, adopting a refinement suggested at the last moment, was sent out to intercept Grabot before he entered, and tell him that the inn was full, and that he had better pass on.
The knave did his business so well that Grabot, being just such a man as the stroller had described to us, the altercation on the threshold was of itself the most amusing thing in the world. "Who?" we heard a loud, coarse voice exclaim. "Who d'ye say are here, man?" "The Mayor of Bottitort." "The Mayor of Bottitort and the Mayors of Gol and St.
The Mayor clapped his hand to his head. "Sir," he said almost humbly, addressing the last speaker, "I seem to know your voice. Your name, if you please?" "Fracasse," he answered pleasantly. "I am Mayor of Gol." "You Fracasse, Mayor of Gol?" Grabot exclaimed between rage and terror. "But Fracasse is a tall man. I know him as well as I know my brother."
M. de Laval muttered, looking round with a frown of discontent. "I hope that you have not brought me hither on a fool's errand. Which one?" "That one," the Mayor said, pointing to the solemn man, whose gravity and depression were now something preternatural. "Oh!" M. de Laval grumbled. "But that is not all, I suppose. What of the others?" M. Grabot pointed to me. "That one," he said
"No, but some one is, Sir," he continued, turning to La Font with a gesture in which appeal and impatience were curiously blended, "Do you know this man?" "M. Grabot? Certainly," he answered, without blushing. "And have these ten years." "And you say that he is M. Grabot?" the poor Mayor retorted, his jaw falling ludicrously. "Certainly. Who should he be?"
Well, Pierre shall be M. Grabot, Mayor of Bottitort. You, monsieur, that we may give him enough of mayors, shall be the Mayor of Gol, and I will be the Mayor of St. Just. This gentleman shall swear to us, so shall the servants. For him, he does not exist. Oh, we will punish him finely."
"At least, she says that she does not owe it," the man corrected himself, "for her father paid as usual at Corpus Christi; but after his death M. Grabot said that he had not paid, and " "M. Grabot?" I said. "Who is he?" "The Mayor of Bottitort." "The creditor?" "Yes." "And how much is owing?" I asked. "Nothing, she says." "But how much does he say?" "Twenty crowns."
"Now they shall smart for it! Depend upon it, it is some deep-laid scheme of that party. I have said so." But the Mayor of Gol, a stout, big, placid man, looked at us doubtfully. "Well," he said, "I know these two; they are strolling mountebanks, honest knaves enough but always in some mischief." "What, strolling clowns?" M. Grabot rejoined, his face falling.
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