“By those maps, and a staircase which leads nowhere. Was not that what they told us at the farm?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” replied Puffo. “I can’t understand their beastly patois.”
As he spoke, he took the lantern, and holding it higher than his head, said:
“What do I know about geography?”
His master looked up and exclaimed:
“This is the very room. There are the maps; and here,” he added, running lightly up the wooden staircase, and lifting the map that hung over the wall at the top of it, “is the place walled up. It’s all right, Puffo, we need not distress ourselves any longer. The room is perfectly tight, and we can sleep here like princes.”
“However, I don’t see—Oh yes! there is a bed, but there are neither mattresses nor coverlids, and they told us there were two good beds.”
“You are quite a Sybarite! Do you require a bed wherever you go, my good fellow? Look and see if there is any wood in the stove, and light the fire.”
“There’s no wood at all; nothing but coal.”
“That is still better. Light the fire, my lad, light it. As for me, I am going to attend to this poor Jean.”