The agent and his colleagues were amused at my conversation.
Then I said suddenly to my mother:
“Mamma, will you let me go and tell Blatier (the gardener, who was looking, frightened, through the window) to place some cider to cool, so that you can offer some to these gentlemen? It is so hot!”
My mother made a sign of assent. She had wished a moment before to go into another room, but one of the policemen had stopped her. They allowed me to go out, however. I told Blatier to draw some water from the well, and I went with him, feeling myself followed by the eyes of a policeman, who was looking out of the window. While the gardener drew the water, I went down into the cellar, and came up with some bottles, which I placed in the pail of cold water. Then I dallied over several things, went down in the cellar again, looked for another pail for more bottles, which I brought up, and I then pretended to enter the house slowly. Then I flew with a bound to the garret-door, and with another bound entered it, after having taken off my shoes, so as not to be heard, for the house had but one story. I put the papers in my pocket, slid down the staircase and entered my parents’ room tranquilly, where the police were rummaging into everything.
My mother, trembling, gave them the keys of the drawers. My father, seated, did not move. I prepared a tray myself, and went outside to have the water in the pails changed. I soon returned and offered some cold cider to our visitors, who were delighted.
They ransacked the stable, the carriage-house, the cellar, and the garret.
When my father heard them go upstairs, he rose, his face convulsed, and I saw from my mother’s expression that she was saying to herself: “The papers must be up there—we are lost!”
I took a glassful of cider and approached my father, always watched by the policeman. He pushed my glass away. I leaned over him as if urging him to drink, and whispered these words to him:
“Don’t let your face change. I have the papers!”
I kissed him, which seemed to touch the policeman’s heart, and my father clasped me in his arms.