“Oh, there is no proof whatever of that! But hark to the firing! The race is beginning, and here we are talking over matters that have no interest for anybody, and which, after all, are none of our business. If you feel melancholy this evening, my boy, stay at home; for my part, I want to run about. I must get out into the air. I have done too much dreaming to-day.”
Christian would really have preferred to remain at home, but M. Goefle was so excited that he was rather afraid to let him go alone; so he said:
“Come, let us give up the disguises. It will not do for us to be seen together with our faces uncovered, so let us both go masked. You shall be Christian Waldo, as you are the best dressed; and as I have been taken for my assistant once already to-night, I will be Puffo.”
“Very well imagined!” cried M. Goefle. “Come along! By the way, we will leave the light burning for Master Nils; he may wake up, and then he will be frightened, and perhaps hungry. I will leave a leg of chicken here under his nose.”
“Little Nils! Is he here again?”
“Why yes, certainly! The first thing I did, on returning, was to go and hunt him up in the stable, bring him in here, undress him, and put him to bed. The young monkey would have frozen before morning, out in that straw.”
“Had he come to his senses at all?”
“Oh, perfectly; at least enough to complain that I troubled him dreadfully, and to grumble while I was putting him to bed.”
“And where can Puffo be? I did not see him in the stable when I put Jean in there again.”
“I did not see him, either; he must have gone to get drunk again with Ulphilas. Well, much good may it do them! It is almost midnight; let us go. You will help me harness my horse. Ah! you may be sure that my good Loki will not come in last.”