Ah, well! Come along.
I drag him away. The shoe is an elastic one, and stands up with its toe in the air. It has not that lamentable look of worn-out shoes that have been thrown away on the road, but it is more repulsive. What fixes it on the ground is deep in the soil. One can only see the end of a bit of knitting. Can it be a sock?
Trot along, my friend!
My companion remains docile, thanks to my masterful glances, and we run as hard as we can.
Good Heavens! What will have happened in the castle during this expedition?
Nothing whatever had happened, as a matter of fact.
But, as we got into the hall, I heard Emma and Barbe talking on the floor above. They were beginning to come down the stairs, when the drawing-room door shutting, as we went in, ended my alarms—only to give me new ones.
How, now that the poor lunatic was back in his room, how was I to get out without being observed by one or other of the women?
Stealthily creeping back on tiptoe to the drawing-room, I listened, with my ear to the panel, to distinguish in which direction the two intruders were moving, but suddenly I recoiled into the middle of the room, demented, looking for shelter of some kind, such as a screen, and gasping like a drowning man....
A key was rattling in the lock. Was it my key, left in the door, and stolen during my absence? Not at all. Here is my key, in my waistcoat pocket! I put it there, when I first came in.