"Why, he might have driven out the bars by cutting away the plaster with his knife, and he would have done it, only I got up the ladder, and chopped at his fingers with the bill-hook every time he tried to go to work."
"What a pleasant watch!" said the ruffian, with a chuckle; "it must have been vastly amusing!"
"Why, it was to give you time to come with the iron plates you went to get from Père Micou."
"What a rage the dear brother must have been in!"
"He ground his teeth like a lunatic. Two or three times he tried to drive me away from the iron bars with his stick, but then, as he had only one hand at liberty, he could not work and release the iron bars, which was what he was trying at."
"Fortunately, there's no fireplace in his room, and the door is solid, and his hands finely cut; if not, he would work his way through the floor."
"What! Through those heavy beams? No, no, there's no chance of his escaping; the shutters are covered with iron plates and strengthened with two bars of iron, the door is nailed up outside with large boat-nails three inches long. His coffin is more solid than if it were made of oak and lead."
"I say, though, when La Louve comes out of prison, and makes her way here, to see her man, as she calls him?"
"Well, we shall say, 'Look for him.'"
"By the way, do you know that, if mother had not shut up those young 'rips' of children, they would have gnawed their ways through the door, like young rats, to free Martial? That little vagabond François is quite furious since he suspects we have packed away his tall brother."