Master Robelot, ill at ease on his lounge, attempted to move.
"Ah, look out!" cried M. Lecoq, suddenly changing his tone. "Now get up here, and tell us what you were about in the garden?"
"But you are wounded!" exclaimed Plantat, observing stains of blood on
M. Lecoq's shirt.
"Oh, that's nothing—only a scratch that this fellow gave me with a big cutlass he had."
M. Plantat insisted on examining the wound, and was not satisfied until the doctor declared it to be a very slight one.
"Come, Master Robelot," said the old man, "what were you doing here?"
The bone-setter did not reply.
"Take care," insisted M. Plantat, "your silence will confirm us in the idea that you came with the worst designs."
But it was in vain that M. Plantat wasted his persuasive eloquence. Robelot shut himself up in a ferocious and dogged silence. M. Gendron, hoping, not without reason, that he might have some influence over his former assistant, spoke:
"Answer us; what did you come for?"