“No, monseigneur; I no longer understand. Where is the advantage to me? hanged in one case, cudgelled in the other?”

“And a vagabond,” resumed Clopin, “and a vagabond; is that nothing? It is for your interest that we should beat you, in order to harden you to blows.”

“Many thanks,” replied the poet.

“Come, make haste,” said the king, stamping upon his cask, which resounded like a huge drum! Search the manikin, and let there be an end to this! I warn you for the last time, that if I hear a single bell, you will take the place of the manikin.”

The band of thieves applauded Clopin’s words, and arranged themselves in a circle round the gibbet, with a