“Certainly,” said Lieutenant Thornton, “you shall see him, poor fellow. He is, and has been for years, deaf and dumb; but as fine and faithful a fellow as ever lived. I am so accustomed to his sighs and ways, that I scarcely remark his being dumb.”
“Eh, mon Dieu!” said the sergeant, referring to his book, “it does not say a word about Pierre Bompart’s deafness, or his being dumb either.”
“Nevertheless the poor fellow has to bear both severe afflictions,” said Lieutenant Thornton; “but he is very cheerful, and looks well and hearty.”
The sergeant’s book having been signed both by Mabel and our hero, as Marie and Philip de Tourville, the ladies retired, and in a few minutes Bill Saunders walked into the room, gazing at Sergeant Perrin with a look of stolid indifference.
“Ha, mon Dieu! a fine fellow,” said the gendarme; “what a misfortune!”
He then looked at his book and read out: “Pierre Bompart, aged thirty, native of Picardy. Tell him, monsieur, to write his name here,” continued the sergeant, putting the book before our hero.
Here was a difficulty Lieutenant Thornton had not prepared for. Bill could write very well his own name or anything else; but how to get him to comprehend that he was to write Pierre Bompart before the sergeant was another thing.
“Mon Dieu!” said our hero, “that part of his education was neglected, owing to his infirmity; but I will get him to put his mark, if that will do.”
“Sacristie, it must,” said the sergeant, helping himself to another glass of Cognac, to brighten his ideas, which were getting rather confused. “A deaf and dumb man cannot well be expected to write. Pardon, monsieur; write his name yourself, and say, ‘For my servant, Pierre Bompart, who is deaf and dumb.’”
This our hero did, and underneath the sergeant wrote “his mark,” and handed the pen to Bill.