"And let you pay one quarter?" I said.
"Yes," he answered.
But this, and the simplicity with which he said it, drew so loud
a roar of laughter from the crowd as penetrated even to his
dulled senses. Turning abruptly, as if a bee had stung him, he
found the place convulsed with merriment; and perceiving, in an
instant, that I had played upon him, though he could not
understand how or why, he glared about him a moment, muttered
something which I could not catch, and staggered away with the
gait of a drunken man.
After this, it was useless to suppose that I could amuse myself
with others. The crowd, which had never dreamed of such a tax-
collector, and could scarcely believe either eyes or ears,
hesitated to come forward even to pay; and I was considering what
I should do next, when a commotion in one corner of the square
drew my eyes to that quarter. I looked and saw at first only
Curtin. Then, the crowd dividing and making way for him, I
perceived that he had the real Gringuet with him--Gringuet, who
rode through the market with an air of grim majesty, with one
foot in a huge slipper and eyes glaring with ill-temper.
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