him into mischief! But the question was how to get rid of them? He had

given Ursus a lease. What a blessing if he could free himself from it!

How should he set to work to drive them out?

Suddenly the door of the inn resounded with one of those tumultuous

knocks which in England announces "Somebody." The gamut of knocking

corresponds with the ladder of hierarchy.

It was not quite the knock of a lord; but it was the knock of a justice.

The trembling innkeeper half opened his window. There was, indeed, the

magistrate. Master Nicless perceived at the door a body of police, from

the head of which two men detached themselves, one of whom was the

justice of the quorum.

Master Nicless had seen the justice of the quorum that morning, and

recognized him.

He did not know the other, who was a fat gentleman, with a

waxen-coloured face, a fashionable wig, and a travelling cloak. Nicless

was much afraid of the first of these persons, the justice of the

quorum. Had he been of the court, he would have feared the other most,

because it was Barkilphedro.

One of the subordinates knocked at the door again violently.

The innkeeper, with great drops of perspiration on his brow, from

721

The Man Who Laughs