I found him a stolid fellow, officially gloomy, but with his memory of the events of Theophrastus' visit perfectly clear.
At my questions he lost his air of gloom, and said with some animation, "Everything was going quite as usual, sir; and I had just shown the two gentlemen and the lady the kitchens of St. Louis—where we keep the whitewash. We were on our way to the cell of Marie Antoinette, which is now a little chapel. The figure of Christ before which she must have prayed is now in the Director's office—"
"Yes, yes; let's get to the facts!" I interrupted.
"We're just coming to them. I was telling the gentleman with the green umbrella that we had been compelled to put the Queen's armchair in the Director's office because the English were carrying away all the stuffing of it in their purses—"
"Oh, cut out the English!" I said with some impatience.
He looked at me with an injured air and went on: "But I must tell you what I was saying to the gentleman with the green umbrella when he interrupted me in such a strange tone that the other gentleman and the lady cried out together, 'What's the matter, Theophrastus? I never heard you speak like that before! I shouldn't have recognised your voice!'"
"Ah! and what was he saying to you?"
"We had come just to the end of Paris Street—you know the passage we call Paris Street at the Conciergerie?"
"Yes, yes: get on!"
"We were at the top of that dreadful black passage where the grating is behind which they used to cut off the women's hair before guillotining them. It's the original grating, you know."