One evening, Georget went to his mother and asked:
"Do you still like it here very much, mamma?"
"Do I like it, my boy? Why I should be very hard to suit if I wasn't happy here; a pretty house, a lovely country, pleasant work, all the good things of life, and such a kind master, who keeps asking me if there is anything I want! Aren't you happy and content to be here yourself?"
"Forgive me, mother, I am perfectly contented. We have been here a long time already, haven't we?"
"A long time! Only nine days, my dear."
"Only nine days! That is strange! It seems to me as if it was more than a month!"
"Poor boy! Are you so terribly bored? Do you regret Paris?"
"Oh, no! I don't regret Paris, mother! I don't think of Paris at all! But, although I have said that I would never step foot in Paris again, if you should happen to need anything, if you have left anything at our rooms that you miss, you must tell me so, mother; because it would take me only a short time to go and get it for you; and I will return at once, I won't stop an instant. It is such a little way from here to Paris, that I am sure it wouldn't take me three hours to go and come back!"
"Thanks, my child, but I have no need to send you to Paris; I haven't left anything at home that I need; you won't have to take that trip."
Georget said nothing more, but his face betrayed his disappointment; however, he dared not insist, for he feared that his mother would read what was going on in his heart. A few days later, Georget accosted Pongo, who was busily engaged in a dispute with a superb dahlia.