"Aha! Monsieur Dupétrain," said Mouillot, "you are a sad rake, it seems."
"That's a very neat trick," said the painter; "we thought you had gone home, and you had stolen into my servant's room!"
"He wanted to magnetize her, no doubt."
"Messieurs," said Dupétrain, decidedly embarrassed, "I swear to you that this is nothing of any consequence, and that the Burgundian rustic misapprehended my intentions. For what did I propose to do? simply make an experiment in magnetism on that dull, brutish temperament. I said to myself: 'If I can succeed in putting that countrywoman into a trance, what an extraordinary proof it will be of the power of my art!'"
"Yes; and he took off Crevette's bedclothes, so that he could see that dull temperament."
"Messieurs, to put myself in communication with a subject, it is necessary——"
"Enough! we don't want to hear any more. To the card table!"
"Why! someone is missing," said Mouillot.
"That's so. Tobie isn't here. Can he have gone away? It isn't possible."
They searched the studio, thinking that he had hidden, to play a trick on them; but they found that he had really gone.