Père Clovis ceased jesting. "Oh! not very much, not very much. No matter—I'm getting on—I'm getting on!"
Then the banker wanted to see at once how the vagabond walked. He kept rushing about the hole, got agitated, gave orders, as if he were going to float again a ship that had foundered.
"Look here, Gontran! you take the right arm. You, Bretigny, the left arm. I am going to keep up his back. Come on! together!—one—two—three! My dear father-in-law, draw the leg toward you—no, the other, the one that's in the water. Quick, pray! I can't hold out longer. There we are—one, two—there!—ouf!"
They had put the old trickster sitting on the ground; and he allowed them to do it with a jeering look, without in any way assisting their efforts.
Then they raised him up again, and set him on his legs, giving him his crutches, which he used like walking-sticks; and he began to step out, bent double, dragging his feet after him, whining and blowing. He advanced in the fashion of a slug, and left behind him a long trail of water on the white dust of the road.
Andermatt, in a state of enthusiasm, clapped his hands, crying out as people do at theaters when applauding the actors: "Bravo, bravo, admirable, bravo!!!"
Then, as the old fellow seemed exhausted, he rushed forward to hold him up, seized him in his arms, although his clothes were streaming, and he kept repeating:
"Enough, don't fatigue yourself! We are going to put you back into your bath."
And Père Clovis was plunged once more into his hole by the four men who caught him by his four limbs and carried him carefully like a fragile and precious object.
Then, the paralytic observed in a tone of conviction: "It is good water, all the same, good water that hasn't an equal. It is worth a treasure, water like that!"