"Why the deuce don't you do something, Master Thief? If you can get into places where you do not belong, why cannot you get out of this abominable box?"
François laughed. "Get out I would, and gladly; but how? We might wait, monsieur, till they drink up the wine, or until it dries up, or—" But here the boys laughed, and even the duke forgot himself, and said François was a merry fellow. Indeed, he was of use to them all; for, soon becoming at ease, he regaled the boys with his adventures; but how many he invented I do not know. Some were queer, and some silly; but all tales are good in the dark, for then what can one do but attend?
After a while, all being still, François lighted his lantern, on which Duke Philippe said: "Put out that light; we have too few candles as it is; and keep quiet. You are prowling about like a cat on the tiles, and twice you have stumbled over my legs."
"But I have twice said I was sorry," said François, getting tired of this duke with an uncertain temper, who repeated: "Put out that light, and sit down."
Then madame spoke: "He may have a reason to want to see and to move about."
"'T is so," said François. "If I walk, my wits walk; if I sit, they go to sleep; and as to cats, madame, I am a street cat"; and, thinking of Suzanne, he laughed.
"Ah, confound your laughing!" The duke felt that to laugh at a joke he did not share was, to say the least, disrespectful. "What is there to laugh at?"
François, who had been moving as he spoke, was suddenly elated. He said it was Suzanne he was thinking of; and when madame would know if she were his wife, the duke was silent out of lack of interest for low company, and François began to tell about the elders and the Hebrew maid, and of the Amalekites who lived on the next roof. The boys were charmed, and madame said, "Fie! fie!" but it served to amuse. An hour later he began to move about restlessly, and at last cried out, from the far end of the cellar:
"This way, monsieur; what is this? A candle—and quick!" When they all came to see, he rolled aside an empty cask, and showed a heavy planking. He seized the decayed timbers and tore them away, so that as they fell a black gap was to be seen. The air blew in, cool and damp.
"Mon Dieu! 't is the catacombs. My husband's grandfather cut off this end for a wine-cave. It is strange I should have quite forgotten it."