“‘They are pigs!’”
“Eh bien—tant pis—it’s a secret,” Poufaille cried; “but I’m going to tell it. And, besides, a secret chokes me, like your collars!”
“If it’s a secret, I don’t want to know it,” Phil answered.
“Si, si! You must. I’ll tell it to you—under seal of secrecy! See here,” Poufaille went on; “I’m gardener at the Louvre!”
“Nothing wonderful in that,” Phil said, as he looked across the Seine at the flower-beds and green turf at the foot of the Louvre façade.
“Not there,” Poufaille explained. “Not down there—but up yonder! I’m gardener of the Louvre roofs!”
Looking where Poufaille pointed, Phil perceived, high, high up against the blue sky, tufts of greenery actually growing above that part of the Louvre Palace. He knew there were a few roof-gardens in Paris; but he had never noticed this one.
“Now you understand!” Poufaille said, with gesticulation. “There’s no means of keeping up an understanding with them! It has ended by wearing me out. Always roses, iris, and gillyflowers, and gillyflowers, iris, and roses. That sort of stuff won’t fill my stomach! I wanted to plant potatoes. I could live on them! But they’ve refused permission—and I tell you, they’re pigs!”
“But they—who are they?”