"Then I needn't be a butcher's boy?" I said at last.
He paused in the act of drawing on a boot.
"Butcher's boy? Do you want to be a butcher's boy?"
"No, Master," said I fervently.
"Then what are you talking of?" He had evidently not heard my answer to his question. "I am going to educate you in the High School of the Earth, the University of the Universe, and to-morrow you shall see a cow and a dandelion. And before then you will be disastrously seasick."
"The sea!" I cried in delirious amazement. "We are going on the sea? Where are we going?"
"To France, petit imbécile," he cried. "Why are you not getting ready to go there?"
I might have answered that I had no personal preparations to make; but feeling rebuked for idleness while he was so busy, I began to clear away the breakfast things. He stopped me.
"Nom de Dieu, we are not going to travel with cups and saucers!"
He dragged from the top of the cupboard an incredibly dirty carpet bag of huge dimensions and decayed antiquity, and bade me pack therein our belongings. The process was not a lengthy one; we had so few. When we had little more than half filled the bag with articles of attire and the toilette stuffed in pell-mell, we looked around for ballast.