Jack got into the heart of the Marais, found a pissing-corner where he could stand still, and scanned the air above the people’s heads for half an hour or so, and listened, until he heard a particular cry. Everyone in the street was shouting something, usually the name of whatever they were selling, and for the first couple of hours it had just been Bedlam to Jack. But after a while Jack’s ear learned to pick out individual voices-something like hearing drum-beats or bugle-calls in battle. Parisians, he knew, had developed the skill to a high degree, just as the Lieutenant of Police could scan a torrent of people coming in through a gate at dawn and pick out the Vagabond. Jack was just able to hear a high-pitched voice crying “ Mort-aux-rats! Mort-aux-rats!” and then it was easy enough to turn his head and see a long pole, like a pike, being carried at an angle over someone’s shoulder, the corpses of a couple of dozen rats dangling from it by their tails, their freshness an unforgeable guarantee that this man had been working recently.

Jack shoved his way into the throng, using the crutch now like a burglar’s jimmy to widen small openings, and after a few minutes’ rattling pursuit caught up with St.-George and clapped him on the shoulder, like a policeman. Many would drop everything and sprint away when so handled, but one did not become a legend in the rat-killer’s trade if one was easily startled. St.-George turned around, making the rats on his pole swing wide, like perfectly synchronized pole-dancers at a fun-fair, and recognized him. Calmly, but not coldly. “Jacques-so you did escape from those German witches.”

“’Twas nothing,” Jack said, trying to cover his astonishment, then his pride, that word of this had spread as far as Paris. “They were fools. Helpless. Now, if you had been chasing me-”

“Now you have returned to civilization-why?” Steely curiosity being another good rat-killer trait. St.-George had curly hair the color of sand, and hazel eyes, and had probably looked angelic as a boy. Maturity had elongated his cheekbones and (according to legend) other parts of his body in a way that was not so divine-his head was funnel-shaped, tapering to a pair of pursed lips, staring eyes that looked as if they were painted on. “You know that the passe-volante trade has been quashed-why are you here?”

“To renew my friendship with you, St.-George.”

“You have been riding on horseback-I can smell it.”

Jack decided to let this pass. “How can you smell anything except man-shit here?”

St.-George sniffed the air. “Shit? Where? Who has been shitting?” This, being a sort of joke, was a signal that Jack could now offer to buy St.-George something, as a token of friendship. After some negotiations, St.-George agreed to be the recipient of Jack’s generosity-but not because he needed it-only because it was inherent in human nature that one must from time to time give things away, and at such times, one needed someone to give things away to, and part of being a good friend was to be that someone, as needed. Then there were negotiations about what Jack was going to buy. St.-George’s objective was to figure out how much money Jack was carrying-Jack’s was to keep St.-George wanting to know more. In the end, for tactical reasons, St.-George agreed to allow Jack to buy him some coffee-but it had to be from a particular vendor named Christopher.

They were half an hour tracking him down. “He is not a tall man-”

“Hard to find, then.”

“But he wears a red fez with a brave golden tassel-”

“He’s a Turk?”

“Of course! I told you he sold coffee, didn’t I?”

“A Turk named-Christopher?”

“Don’t play the clown, Jacques-remember that I know you.”

“But-?”

St.-George rolled his eyes, and snapped, “All of the Turks who sell coffee in the streets are actually Armenians dressed up as Turks!”

“I’m sorry, St.-George, I didn’t know.”

“I should not be so harsh,” St.-George admitted. “When you left Paris, coffee was not fashionable yet-not until the Turks fled from Vienna, and left mountains of it behind.”

“It’s been fashionable in England since I was a boy.”

“If it is in England, it is not fashionable, but a curiosity, ” St.-George said through clenched teeth.

Onwards they searched, St.-George wending like a ferret through the crowd, passing round, e.g., furniture-sellers carrying fantastic complexes of stools and chairs all roped together on their backs, milk-men with pots on their heads, d’oublies carrying unlit lanterns, and bent under enormous dripping barrels of shit; knife-grinders trundling their wheels. Jack had to put the crutch to much rude use, and considered taking out the sword. Eliza had been right-Paris was retail-funny she’d known this without ever having set foot in the city, while Jack, who’d lived here, on and off, for years…

Best to keep his mind on St.-George. Only the rat-pole prevented Jack from losing him. Though it helped that people were always running out of shops, or shouting from windows, trying to engage his services. The only people who could afford to keep fixed shops were members of a few princely trades, viz. makers of dresses, hats, and wigs. But St.-George treated all men alike, asking them a series of penetrating questions and then firmly sending them home. “Even noblemen and savants are as peasants in their understanding of rats,” St.-George said incredulously. “How can I be of service to them when their thinking is so pre-theoretical?”

“Well, as a start, you could get rid of their rats…”

“One does not get rid of rats! You are no better than these people!”

“Sorry, St.-George. I-”

“Does anyone ever get rid of Vagabonds?”

“Individual ones, certainly. But-”

“Individual to you -but to a Gentleman, all the same, like rats, n’est-ce pas? One must live with rats.”

“Except for the ones dangling from your pole-?”

“It is like the exemplary hanging. The heads on the spikes before the city-gates.”

“To scare les autres?”

“Just so, Jacques. These were, to rats, as you, my friend, are to Vagabonds.”

“You are too kind-really, you flatter me, St.-George.”

“These were the cleverest-the ones who would find the smallest of holes, who would explore the drain-pipes, who would say to the common rats: ‘gnaw through this grate, mes amis -it will shorten your teeth to be sure-but once through, such things you will feast on!’ These were the savants, the Magellans-”

“And they’re dead.”

“They displeased me too many times, these did. Many others, I allow to live-to breed, even!”

“No!”

“In certain cellars-unbeknownst to the apothecaries and parfumiers who live above-I have rat seraglios where my favorites are allowed to procreate. Some lines I have bred for a hundred generations. As a breeder of canines creates dogs fierce against strangers, but obedient to the master-”

“You create rats that obey St.-George.”

“Pourquoi non?”

“But how can you be so certain that the rats are not breeding you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your father was mort-aux-rats, no?”

“And his father before him. Killed in plagues, may God have mercy on their souls.”

“So you believe. But perhaps the rats killed them.”

“You anger me. But your theory is not without promise-”

“Perhaps you, St.-George, are the result of a breeding program-you have been allowed to live, and flourish, and have children of your own, because you have a theory that is congenial to the rats.”

“Still, I kill very many.”

“But those are the stupid ones-without introspection.”

“I understand, Jacques. For you, I would serve as mort-aux-rats and would do it for free. But these-” he made a flicking gesture at a man in an excellent wig who was trying to call him over to a shop. The man looked crestfallen-temporarily. But then St.-George softened, and moved in the direction of a narrow doorway-more hatch than door-set into the wall of this wig-maker’s shop, next to his open shop-window. This suddenly burst open, and a round-bodied five-foot-tall man with a vigorous moustache and curly-toed slippers emerged from a stairway no wider than he was, preceded by a smoking and steaming apparatus of hammered copper that was strapped to his body.