The scenes everywhere were so intensely interesting that he had not had enough of them when Asticot reappeared, cleansed, reclothed, his hair sleekly plastered, still lugging his sack and looking at the sentinel with the sad air of outraged innocence bestowing forgiveness.
"Let him pass, please," said Warner from the window. After a few moments a disgusted maid knocked, requesting enlightenment concerning "an individual pretending to be a servant of Monsieur Warner."
"It's true, Babette," he said, laughing. "Show him up, if you please."
Asticot entered, cap in hand, bowed, scraped the carpet with a propitiating and crablike shuffle of his right foot, and set the sack upon the floor.
There always had been something about the young ruffian which inclined Warner to mirth. He waited a moment to control the amusement which twitched at his lips, then:
"Well, Asticot, where have you been and what is in this bundle?"
"M'sieu'—may I close the door? I thank M'sieu'.... One cannot be too careful about being overheard in these miserable days of martial law."
"What? Have you been doing something you are ashamed of?"
"No; nothing that I am ashamed of," replied Asticot naïvely. "I have been to Ausone."
"To Ausone!"