"With what purpose?"

"With the purpose of going to a certain place."

"Did I take a light?"

"No, you had none."

"How did I walk?"

"Feeling your way."

"You hear him, messieurs; I felt my way because I had no light; he doesn't make a mistake as to a single detail.--Let's go on: where did I go?"

"Out into the corridor; you forgot that you had been told that it was the door at the left; you turned to the right and came into this room."

"Exactly,--and then?"

"You found a soup-tureen, and you used it for----"

"Better and better!"

"The noise woke our host; he yelled and went out to get out a light, and meanwhile you hid the tureen under the bed."

"Exactly. Look and see if he is mistaken in a single point!"

The servants did in fact find the tureen, which they soon returned to its place, holding their noses. The host was stupefied; but his spoiled soup-stock made him rather sulky, for he expected to make soup with it for a whole week. My companion, seeing what disturbed him, came back to me.

"What has it been my intention to do, since I discovered my mistake?"

"To give our host twelve francs as compensation for this accident."

"Parbleu! exactly! Twelve francs! I told you so a moment ago, my dear host, to appease your wrath."

"No, monsieur, I a.s.sure you that you never mentioned it."

"No? Well, I had it on the tip of my tongue. Now you are satisfied, I hope, and I can wake our young man."

He came to me and pinched the end of my little finger. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes, like a person just waking, and naturally asked what I was doing there.

My companion glanced at the people of the inn; they were so surprised by all that they had seen and heard, that they stared at me as at a supernatural being.

"Now let's go back to bed," said the crafty hunchback. "Until to-morrow, messieurs; I promise you that you will see many more wonderful things, if you allow us to make our experiments in peace."

My companion took my arm and we returned to our room, leaving the inn-keeper and his servants a.s.suring one another that all that they had just seen had really happened.

XII

MARVELOUS EXPERIMENTS OF THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK

When we were closeted in our room, my companion threw himself into my arms and embraced me joyfully.

"My boy, I am delighted with you," he said; "you played your role like an angel! You are an invaluable fellow, and our fortune is made.

To-night's adventure will create a sensation."

We went to bed well pleased with the way in which we had extricated ourselves from a bad sc.r.a.pe. I fell asleep thinking of Clairette, of her charms, of the pleasure I owed to her, of those I hoped still to enjoy; and my companion, reckoning what his first seance would be worth to him in a town where his reputation had obtained such a favorable start.

The little hunchback was not mistaken in his belief that the adventure of the night would bring us a crowd of curiosity seekers. The servants of the inn had risen early, in order to lose no time in telling all that they had seen and heard. The hair-dressers, the bakers, the grocers were the first to be informed; but that was quite enough to make it certain that the whole town would soon know what we were capable of doing. An adventure becomes so magnified by pa.s.sing from mouth to mouth that we sometimes have difficulty in recognizing things that have happened to ourselves, when we hear others tell them. Everyone takes delight in adding some strange or marvelous detail, in outbidding his neighbor; thus it is that a brook becomes a rushing torrent, that a child who recites a complimentary poem without a mistake is a prodigy, that a juggler is a magician, that a man who has a soprano voice is a eunuch, that the man whose love is all for his country is a suspicious person in the eyes of him who loves only his own interest, and that a comet announces the end of the world.

The maid-servant, when she went to buy her ounce of coffee, learned from the grocer's clerk that there were two most extraordinary men at the Tete-Noire inn, who were endowed with the power to tell you what you had done and what you meant to do.

"Pardieu! I must go and tell my mistress that," said the maid as she left the shop; "she went to walk with her cousin the other night, and she don't want her husband to know it; I'll tell her not to go and let those sorcerers get scent of it."

"What's the news?" the old bachelor asked the barber, as he took his seat in the chair and put on his towel.

"What news, Monsieur Sauvageon! Peste! we have some very peculiar, very interesting people in town!"

"Tell me about them, my friend; go on!"

"Those two strangers, those doctors who arrived at the Tete-Noire last night, have been making experiments already."

"Indeed?"

"It's an absolute fact; I got it from Jerome, the servant at the inn, who saw it and heard it."

"The devil."

"The somnambulist began his nocturnal expeditions last night."

"Nocturnal expeditions at night! Are these somnambulists nyctalopes?"

"Yes, monsieur, they're nycta--What do you call it, Monsieur Sauvageon?"

"Nyctalopes, my friend."

"They're nyctalopes, for sure.--What does nyctalopes mean?"

"It means that they see in the dark."

"Oh! I understand! they're like cats; in fact, somnambulists are as smart as cats in the dark.--But to return to this one at the Tete-Noire, you must know that he tells everything anybody's done; and last night he discovered something that was hidden from all eyes!"

"I understand! he discovered some intrigue."[B]

[B] _Le pot aux roses_; lit. the jar of roses.