It seems that when the peasant woman entered some one else--some one who was invisible and imperceptible to all save the boys--came into the coupé. The boys fancied that she came and sat down between them and took their hands in hers, as she had done late last night, when it was settled that they must leave her; and she was talking to them now as she did then. "You must promise me that you will not be angry with father for my sake. Father has never been able to forgive me for preventing him from going abroad. He thinks it is my fault that he has never amounted to anything and that he drinks. He can never punish me enough. But you mustn't be angry at him on that account. Now, when you are to live with father, you must promise me that you will be kind to him. You mustn't quarrel with him and you are to look after his needs as well as you can. This you must promise me, otherwise I don't know how I can ever let you go." And the boys promised. "You mustn't run away from father, promise me that!" mother had said. That they had also promised. The boys are as good as their word, and the instant they happen to think that they had given mother these promises, they abandon all thought of flight. Father sleeps all the while and they remain patiently in their places. Then they resume their reading with redoubled zeal, and their friend, the good Jules Verne, soon takes them away from many heavy sorrows to Africa's happy wonder world. Far out on the south side of the city, father has rented two rooms and a kitchen on the ground floor, with an entrance from the court and an outlook over a narrow yard. The apartment has long been in use; it has gone from family to family, without ever having been renovated. The wall paper is full of tears and spots; the ceilings are sooty; a couple of window-panes are cracked, and the kitchen floor is so worn that it is full of ruts. Expressmen have brought the furniture cases from the railway station and have left them there, helter skelter. Father and the boys are now unpacking. Father stands with axe raised to hack open a box. The boys are taking out glass and porcelain ware from another box, and are arranging them in a wall cupboard. They are handy and work eagerly, but the father never stops cautioning them to be careful, and forbids their carrying more than one glass or plate at a time. Meanwhile it goes slowly with father's own work. His hands are fumbly and powerless, and he works himself into a sweat without getting the lock off the box. He lays down the axe, walks around the box, and wonders if it's the bottom that is uppermost. Then one of the boys takes hold of the axe and begins to bend the lock, but father pushes him aside. "That lock is nailed down too hard. Surely you don't imagine that you can force the lock when father couldn't do it? Only a regular workman can open that box," says father, putting on his hat and coat to go and fetch the janitor.