"Why, yes, my child," he replied. "How do you think you can guide me otherwise? And warn me when there is anything in the way, and above all don't be absent-minded."
"Oh, I assure you, sir, you can place every confidence in me," she said with emotion.
"You see that I already have confidence," he replied.
She took him gently by the left hand, whilst with his right he held his cane, feeling ahead of him cautiously as he went forward.
They had scarcely left the workshops before they came to the railway tracks, and she thought that she ought to warn him.
"Here are the rails, just here," she said. "Please...."
But he interrupted her.
"That you need not tell me," he said. "I know every bit of the ground round about the works; my head knows it and my feet know it, but it's the unexpected obstacles that we might find on the road that you must tell me about, something that's in the path that should not be. All the ground I know, thoroughly."
It was not only his grounds that he knew, but he knew his people also. When he went through the yards his men greeted him. They not only took their hats off as though he saw them, but they said his name.
"Good morning, sir!... Good morning, Monsieur Vulfran!"