Out of the depths of the young man's memory there swam to the surface a single word—a word which he must have heard somewhere or read somewhere: a legacy, perhaps, from long-vanished school-days.
“Zut!” he barked, and instantaneously Jules turned himself off at the main. There was a moment of dazed silence, such as might occur in a boiler-factory if the works suddenly shut down.
“Quick! Now you've got him!” cried Sally. “Ask him what he's talking about—if he knows, which I doubt—and tell him to speak slowly. Then we shall get somewhere.”
The young man nodded intelligently. The advice was good.
“Lentement,” he said. “Parlez lentement. Pas si—you know what I mean—pas si dashed vite!”
“Ah-a-ah!” cried Jules, catching the idea on the fly. “Lentement. Ah, oui, lentement.”
There followed a lengthy conversation which, while conveying nothing to Sally, seemed intelligible to the red-haired linguist.
“The silly ass,” he was able to announce some few minutes later, “has made a bloomer. Apparently he was half asleep when we came in, and he shoved us into the lift and slammed the door, forgetting that he had left the keys on the desk.”
“I see,” said Sally. “So we're shut in?”
“I'm afraid so. I wish to goodness,” said the young man, “I knew French well. I'd curse him with some vim and not a little animation, the chump! I wonder what 'blighter' is in French,” he said, meditating.