r an interview with him,

and, surrounding his house, summoned him to come forth for

personal conference. Whereupon, Monsieur Gabelle did heavily

bar his door, and retire to hold counsel with himself. The result of

that conference was, that Gabelle again withdrew himself to his

house-top behind his stack of chimneys; this time resolved, if his

door were broken in (he was a small Southern man of retaliative

temperament), to pitch himself head foremost over the parapet,

and crush a man or two below.

Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there with

the distant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating at his door,

combined with the joy-ringing for music; not to mention his

having an ill-omened lamp slung across the road before his

posting-house gate, which the village showed a lively inclination to

displace in his favour. A trying suspense, to be passing a whole

summer night on the brink of the black ocean, ready to take that

plunge into it upon which Monsieur Gabelle had resolved! But, the

friendly dawn appearing at last, and the rush-candles of the village

guttering out, the people happily dispersed, and Monsieur Gabelle

came down bringing his life with him for that while.

Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, there

were other functionaries less fortunate, that night and other

nights, whom the