At evening, when Finette returned home in despair, instead of the steward she found another visitor little less formidable. The bailiff had heard the story of the guineas, and had also made up his mind to marry the stranger. He was not rough like the steward, but a fat, good-natured man who could not speak without bursting into a laugh, showing his great yellow teeth, and puffing and blowing like an ox, though at heart he was not less obstinate or less threatening than his predecessor. Finette entreated the bailiff to leave her alone. He laughed and hinted to her in a good-natured way that, by right of his office, he had the power to imprison and hang people without process of law. She clasped her hands, and begged him with tears to go. For his only answer he took a roll of parchment from his pocket, wrote on it a contract of marriage, and declared to Finette that should he stay all night he would not leave the house till she had signed the promise.
"Nevertheless," said he, "if you do not like my person I have another parchment here on which I will write an agreement to live apart; and if my sight annoys you, you have only to shut your eyes."
"Why," said Finette, "I might decide to do as you wish if I were sure of finding a good husband in you; but I am afraid."
"Of what, my dear child?" asked the bailiff, smiling, and already as proud as a peacock.
"Do you think," said she, with a pettish air, "that a good husband would leave that door wide open, and not know that his wife was freezing with cold?"
"You are right, my dear," said the bailiff; "it was very stupid in me. I will go and shut it."
"Have you hold of the knob?" asked Finette.
"Yes, my charmer," answered the happy bailiff; "I am just shutting the door."
"Abracadabra!" cried Finette. "May you hold the door, villain, and may the door hold you till daybreak."
And behold, the door opened and shut, and slammed against the walls like an eagle flapping its wings. You may judge what a dance the poor captive kept up all night. Never had he tried such a waltz, and I imagine that he never wished to dance a second one of the same sort. Sometimes the door swung open with him in the street; sometimes it flew back and crushed him against the wall. He swung backward and forward, screaming, swearing, weeping, and praying, but all in vain; the door was deaf, and Finette asleep.