CHAPTER V.
The next morning, just as I had dropped into an uneasy doze, there came a knocking and a hammering, and a muttering outside my door.
"M'sieur! M'sieur!" Tap-tap-tap. "Que diable donc! Qu'il dort! M'sieur! Profondement! Est ce qu'il est mort? Ah! c'est une bete Anglaise!" Tap-tap-tap.
All this came through the wall in a hazy sort of confusion, mingling with my sleep, before it roused me to go and open the door. Finally, however, I stumbled off the bed and unlocked the door, and threw it open.
"What now" I thought. "Have I broken any more of your confounded Gallic regulations."
It was not a Commissary of Police this time, but a uniformed commissionaire, with a note in his hand. Possibly serenely unconscious that I had heard his polite remarks outside, he bowed urbanely.
"Bonjour, M'sieur! A thousand apologies for disturbing M'sieur! But Madame said I was to deliver this note personally."
I looked at him with elevated eyebrows. I knew no Madame in Paris.
"I think there is some mistake," I said.