“Oh hé, busy! and what are you busy about?”
“I? I am writing letters.”
“Pardon,” said Ferminard. “I will call on you again.”
As he laboured, pausing every five minutes for five minutes’ rest, a necessity due to the cramped position in which he had to work, he heard vague sounds from Ferminard’s cell, where that individual was also, it would seem, at work.
One might have fancied that two or three people were in there laughing and disputing and now quarrelling.
It was Ferminard at work on one of his infernal productions, tragedy or comedy, it would be impossible to say, but making more noise in the close confines of a prison cell than it was ever likely to make in the world.
After déjeuner, when Rochefort, tired out, was lying on his bed, the voice of Ferminard again made itself heard.
“M. de Rochefort—are you inclined for a little talk?”
“No,” replied M. de Rochefort. “But you may talk as much as you like and I will promise not to interrupt—for I am going to sleep.”