Hippolyte ran up, and stood listening to her orders with his big eyes and thick lips wide open.
"Hippolyte," said my mother, "you must carry those pots into the house this evening and put them in the kitchen."
"Yes, madame," replied Hippolyte.
In the evening my mother indeed found the pots in the kitchen, but piled up one on top of the other, so as to take up as little room as possible in the domains of Marie the kitchenmaid.
A cold perspiration broke out on my poor mother's face, for too well did she understand what had happened. Hippolyte had obeyed her to the letter. He had emptied out the flowers and taken the pots inside.
Next morning my mother found the flowers broken, heaped on top of one another, glistening with frost, at the foot of the wall.
Pierre, the plant-doctor, was called in, and managed to save a few, but most of them were destroyed.
The second thing was more serious in its nature. I have offered it to Alcide Tousez to incorporate in his Soeur de Jocrisse; but he dared not use it.
I possessed a delightful little sparrow Pierre had caught for me. The poor little bird could scarcely fly, and had tried to go on a voyage of discovery after its father, like Icarus. It had passed from its nest into a cage, where it had grown and developed its wings properly.
Hippolyte had the special charge of feeding my sparrow and cleaning out its cage.