Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 5).djvu/236

216 the horses; to these gamins of the city were added about fifty little vagabonds from the provinces of his holiness, who stroll about and spit into the Tiber from the bridge of San Angelo, when the Tiber has any water in it. Now, as these gamins of Rome, more fortunate than those of Paris, understand every language, more especially the French, they heard the traveler order an apartment, a dinner, and finally inquire the way to the house of Thomson and French.

The result was, that when the new-comer left the hotel with the cicerone, a man detached himself from the rest of the idlers, and, without having been seen by the traveler, and appearing to excite no attention from the guide, followed the stranger with as much skill as a Parisian agent of police would have used.

The Frenchman had been so impatient to reach the house of Thomson and French that he would not wait for the horses to be harnessed, but left word for the carriage to overtake him on the road, or to wait for him at the bankers' door. He reached it before the carriage arrived.

The Frenchman entered, leaving his guide in the anteroom, who immediately entered into conversation with two or three of those industrious idlers who are always to be found in Rome at the doors of banking-houses, churches, museums, or theaters. With the Frenchman, the man who had followed him entered too; the Frenchman knocked at the inner door, and entered the first room; his shadow did the same.

"Messrs. Thomson and French?" inquired the stranger.

A kind of footman rose at a sign from a confidential clerk belonging to the first desk.

"Whom shall I announce?" said the footman.

"The Baron Danglars."

"Follow me!" said the man.

A door opened, through which the footman arid the baron disappeared. The man who had followed Danglars sat down on a bench. The clerk continued to write for the next five minutes; the man also preserved profound silence, and remained perfectly motionless. Then the pen of the clerk ceased to move over the paper; he raised his head, and appearing to be perfectly sure of a tête-à-tête:—

"Ah, ah!" he said, "here you are, Peppino!"

"Yes," was the laconic reply.

"You have found out that there is something worth having about this large gentleman?"

"There is no great merit due to me, for we were informed of it."

"You know his business here, then?"

"Pardieu! he has come to draw, but I don't know how much!"

"You will know presently, my friend."