"Bah! you city folks haven't got any strength!" said the servant; and she struck the door a violent blow with her fist, but without effect. "_Jarni!_ someone must have hooked it outside." "Who in the devil can have played us such a trick?" "_Pardi!_ it must have been one of the peddlers--because they had their eyes on me, don't you see? and perhaps they saw that you was in here." "I haven't any desire to pass my day in this shed." "I'll milk the cow for you." "Much obliged." "And you can tell me something." "I don't know anything more. This smell of cow and filth goes to my head." "Oh! you said just now that this shed was a little--what d'you call it?--a pretty little _bouloir_, with me." "Oh! there's a great difference between _just now_ and _now_. A place ceases to be agreeable, Goton, when you are compelled to stay in it. But it's broad daylight; if that window wasn't so small, we could get out through it." "Oh! you can't do that." "Ah! I have an idea! We must make the best of it. Bring that stone here, Goton; stand on it with me, so that our heads will be near the window, and then shout as I do." "What will I shout?" "What I do." Dubourg put his face to the round hole over the door, and began to cry at the top of his voice: "Help! thieves! stop the carriage! thieves!" "Where's the thieves?" whispered Goton. "Will you do what I tell you to?" repeated Dubourg. "All right; I'll yell, if it amuses you," rejoined the servant. And her strong voice, reinforcing Dubourg's, soon aroused the whole household and a good part of the village. The innkeeper ran to the spot as fast as his left leg allowed, it being two inches shorter than the other. Frédéric came out of his room; Ménard sat up in bed, and succeeded, with his pupil's aid, in reaching the floor. He dressed in haste, and went downstairs close on the heels of Frédéric, who had recognized Dubourg's voice and was more curious than alarmed, suspecting some new invention on the baron's part. They all went out into the yard, where they were joined by the neighbors and a number of laborers on their way to work, who had been attracted by Dubourg's reiterated shouts of: "Thieves! stop the carriage!" They looked about, but saw no carriage; whereupon Goton roared: "Monsieur le baron's carriage has run off!" The shed door was opened at last, and Dubourg rushed out like a madman, raving and swearing, heedless of the fact that his trousers were stained with filth. "What's the matter, monsieur le baron?" queried Ménard, in dismay. "The matter? my berlin--that scoundrel of a postilion! he has run away and taken it with him--with fifty thousand francs in gold that I had in one of the pockets!" "Oh! mon Dieu!" "My father's berlin! the equipage of the Potoskis! It isn't the money that I regret--but a berlin in which the Princess of Hungary---- Ah! my friends, scour the country in all directions--follow every road--a hundred louis to the man who brings it back!"