This gentleman has laid his hand on my collar."
With a sly look he indicated the Commissioner of Police, who did not
budge.
"What! my dear fellow?"
"They have arrested me, that is all," said Lissac.
"Monsieur," the Commissioner quickly interrupted in a low voice, "no
commotion, please. For my sake--and for yours."
He lightly touched Lissac's buttonhole with the end of his finger, as if
to intimate that there was the explanation of his arrest, and Guy
suddenly became very red and stamped his foot.
"Idiot that I am!--I am at your orders, monsieur," he said, making a
sign to the Commissioner to pass out.
He again saluted the stupefied journalist, and the Commissioner bowing
to him, out of politeness or prudence, Guy passed before him, angrily
twirling his mustache.
Besides Brevans, nobody in all that crowd suspected that a man had just
been arrested in the midst of the Exposition. Unless the journalist had
hawked the news from group to group, it would not have been suspected.
Lissac found at the door of the Club on Place Vendome a hired carriage
which had come up as soon as the driver saw the Commissioner. Two
agents, having the appearance of good, peaceable bourgeois, were walking
about, chatting together on the sidewalk, as if on duty. The
Commissioner said to one of them:
"I have no further need of you, Crabot will do."
Crabot, a little man with the profile of a weasel, slowly mounted the
box beside the coachman, and the Commissioner of Police took his seat
next to Lissac, who had nervously plucked the rosette of the Portuguese
Order of Christ from his buttonhole.
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