Etoile snapped her fingers.
“You are a great fool, my Gaillard, Barnabo is not so rough and clumsy. I know the man.”
“But the rat is nibbling at our cheese!”
“What else can he do, the Savoyard cannot go to bed with him. A man is at a disadvantage. He can only call names.”
“Behind our backs, my desire!”
“Over the chess-board, perhaps.”
Gaillard put a hand through the bars, and scratched a leopard’s head.
“It is a pity,” he said, “that we cannot shut Barnabo up with these two innocents when they are hungry. They would play a pretty game with him, a game of knucklebones, with nothing left afterwards but some rags, two sandals, and a brain box.”
Etoile laughed, and then looked shrewd.
“There are other people who would eat up Dan Barnabo, people in the woods—yonder. Every man has a foolish corner in his heart. If Barnabo asks you how the country seems, tell him the folk are as frightened as mice.”