"I was on the lookout in a matter of yours, master; but, thunder and lightning! what a high joke that you should come at this particular moment into this very neighbourhood of my country-house! There's something in all this,--decidedly there is something." "But again I ask you, what are you doing there?" "All in good time, I'll tell you; only let me first look about me for a moment." The Chourineur then ran towards the coach, which was some distance off, looked this way and that way over the plain with a keen and rapid glance, and then rejoined Rodolph, running quickly. "Will you explain to me the meaning of all this?" "Patience, patience, good master; one word more. What's o'clock?" "Half past twelve," said Rodolph, looking at his watch. "All right; we have time, then. The Chouette will not be here for the next half-hour." "The Chouette!" cried Rodolph and the girl both at once. "Yes, the Chouette; in two words, master, I'll tell you all. Yesterday, after you had left the _tapis-franc_, there came--" "A tall man with a woman in man's attire, who asked for me; I know all about that, but then--" "Then they paid for my liquor, and wanted to 'draw' me about you. I had nothing to tell them, because you had communicated nothing to me, except those fisticuffs which settled me. All I know is, that I learned something then which I shall not easily forget. But we are friends for life and death, Master Rodolph, though the devil burn me if I know why. I feel for you the regard which the bulldog feels for his master. It was after you told me that I had 'heart and honour;' but that's nothing, so there's an end of it. It is no use trying to account for it; so it is, and so let it be, if it's any good to you." "Many thanks, my man; but go on." "The tall man and the little lady in men's clothes, finding that they could get nothing out of me, left the ogress's, and so did I; they going towards the Palais de Justice, and I to Notre Dame. On reaching the end of the street I found it was raining pitchforks, points downward,--a complete deluge. There was an old house in ruins close at hand, and I said to myself, 'If this shower is to last all night, I shall sleep as well here as in my own "crib."' So I rolled myself into a sort of cave, where I was high and dry; my bed was an old beam, and my pillow a heap of lath and plaster, and there I slept like a king." "Well, well, go on." "We had drank together, Master Rodolph; I had drank, too, with the tall man and the little woman dressed in man's clothes, so you may believe my head was rather heavy, and, besides, nothing sends me off to sleep like a good fall of rain. I began then to snooze, but I had not been long asleep, I think, when, aroused by a noise, I sat up and listened. I heard the Schoolmaster, who was talking in a friendly tone with somebody. I soon made out that he was parleying with the tall man who came into the _tapis-franc_ with the little woman dressed in man's clothes."