“There is no father,” said he. “M. de St Denys the younger reigns at the Château Méricourt. I see you sneer, monsieur. It is natural for a victim of insular despotism. Here the prospect widens--the atmosphere grows fresh. You will not have heard of it, no; but it is true that there is a sound in the air. Monsieur, I will not be sneered at!” “And what is to be the upshot of it all?” inquired Ned, ignoring the protest. “According to M. de St Denys, a universe of gentlemen.” “He is, at the same time, the soul of honour,” said Lambertine. “Well,” said Mr Murk, “I think I will go to bed.” He appealed to the cook, who still fussed among her pans, with a look of puzzled inquiry. She answered sourly-- “You can take your pick. There are plenty to choose from.” It was then he discovered, to his profound astonishment, that the confessional-boxes were sleeping-places, to the use of one of which he was unblushingly invited in the very face of his company. “Well,” thought he, “I am travelling for experience;” and he took his knapsack, chose that cupboard nearest the window and farthest from the table, and, withdrawing himself behind the curtains, undressed, folded and laid his clothes aside, and philosophically composed himself to slumber on a little bed that smelt of onions. Conditions were not favourable to rest. The heat was suffocating; the atmosphere unspeakable. In the distance the voices of his late companions droned like hornets in a bottle--sometimes swelled, it seemed, into a thick passion of tearfulness. Without brooded an apoplectic silence, broken only by a spasmodic rumbling sound that might have signified dogs or cattle, or, indeed, nothing more than the earth turning in its sleep, or the rolling heavenwards of the wheel of the moon. Now and then some winged creature would boom past the window, its vibrant note dying like the voice of a far-off multitude; now and again the seething rush of a bat would seem to stir up the very grounds of stagnation. Suddenly a heart-wrung voice spoke up outside his curtain-- “Monsieur! I am not to be laughed at. Bear that in mind!” There followed a sound of sobbing--of footsteps unsteadily receding; and thereafter a weary peace was vouchsafed the traveller, and he dreamed that he was put to bake in the selfsame oven that had provided his supper. “That is a fine economy,” he heard the cook say--“to roast the rooster!” The words troubled him excessively. He thought them instinct with a dreadful humour--too diabolically witty to admit of repartee; and so, lapped in despondency, oblivion overtook him. CHAPTER IV. Writhing, as it were, from the edges to a central core of heat, Ned woke to find himself wriggling like an eel in a bath of dripping. He sat up in his dingy cupboard, and feeling and seeing a slant of sunlight blazing through its curtains, plunged for the open and breathed out a fainting sigh of relief.