"Holloa!" said Pipelet, springing up abruptly. "Somebody got my wife in his arms!"
"I really cannot manage to unlace Madame Pipelet's stays by myself!" screamed out the voice, in tones louder than before.
These words perfectly electrified Alfred, and the blush of offended modesty empurpled his melancholy features.
"Sir-r-r!" cried he in a stentorian voice, as he rushed frantically from his lodge. "Sir-r-r! I adjure you, in the name of Honour, to leave my wife and her stays alone! I come! I come!"
And so saying, Alfred dashed into the dark labyrinth called a staircase, forgetting, in his excitement, to close the door of the lodge after him.
Scarcely had he quitted it than an individual entered quickly, snatched from the table the cobbler's hammer, sprung on the bed, and, by means of four small tacks, previously inserted into each corner of a thick cardboard he carried with him, nailed the cardboard to the back of the dark recess in which stood Pipelet's bed; then disappeared as quickly as he had come. So expeditiously was the operation performed, that the porter, having almost immediately recollected his omission respecting the closing the lodge door, hastily descended, and both shut and locked it; then putting the key in his pocket, returned with all speed to succour his wife above-stairs, without the slightest suspicion crossing his mind that any foot had trod there since his own. Having taken this precautionary measure, Alfred again darted off to the assistance of Anastasie, exclaiming, with all the power of his lungs:
"Sir-r-r! I come! Behold me! I place my wife beneath the safeguard of your delicacy!"
But a fresh surprise awaited the worthy porter, and had well-nigh caused him to fall from the height he had ascended to the sill of his own lodge,—the voice of her he expected to find fainting in the arms of some unknown individual was now heard, not from the upper part of the house, but at the entrance! In well-known accents, but sharper and shriller than usual, he heard Anastasie exclaim:
"Why, Alfred! What do you mean by leaving the lodge? Where have you got to, you old gossip?"
At this appeal, M. Pipelet managed to descend as far as the first landing, where he remained petrified with astonishment, gazing downwards with fixed stare, open mouth, and one foot drawn up in the most ludicrous manner.