François skipped to the wardrobe and flung it open. With a finger to his nose he meditated aloud. "The blue and silver ... _un peu trop soigné_. The orange ... _peu convenable_. The purple the purple _essayons_!" Philip opened the rouge-jar. "The grey I wore at De Flaubert's last month." François clapped a hand to his head. "_Ah, sot!_" he apostrophised himself. "_Voilà qui est très bien._" He dived into the wardrobe, emerging presently with the required dress. He laid it on the bed, stroking it lovingly, and darted away to a large chest. From it he brought forth the pink and silver waistcoat that De Bergeret had admired, and the silver lace. Then he paused. "_Les bas?... Les bas aux oiseaux-mouches ... où sont-ils?_" He peered into a drawer, turning over neat piles of stockings. A convulsion of fury seemed to seize him, and he sped to the door. "Ah, _sapristi! Coquin! Jacques!_" In answer to his frenzied call came the cadaverous one, shivering. François seized him by the arm and shook him. "Thou misbegotten son of a toad!" he raved. "Where is the small box I bade you guard with your life? Where is it, I say. Thou--" "I gave it into your hands," said Jacques sadly. "Into your hands, your very hands, in this room here by the door! I swear it." "Swear it? What is it to me, your swear? I say I have not seen the box! At Dover, what did I do? _Nom d'un nom_, did I not say to you, lose thy head sooner than that box?" His voice rose higher and higher. "And now, where is it?" "I tell you I gave it you! It is this bleak country that has warped your brain. Never did the box leave my hands until I gave it into yours!" "And I say you did not! _Saperlipopette_, am I a fool that I should forget? Now listen to what you have done! You have lost the stockings of Monsieur! By your incalculable stupidity, the stupidity of a pig, an ass--" "_Sacré nom de Dieu!_ Am I to be disturbed by your shrieking?" Philip had flung down the haresfoot. He slewed round in his chair. "Shut the door! Is it that you wish to annoy my uncle that you shout and scream in his house?" His voice was thunderous. François spread out his hands. "M'sieur, I ask pardon! It is this _âne_, this careless _gaillard_--" "_Mais, m'sieur!_" protested Jacques. "It is unjust; it is false!" "_Ecoutez donc, m'sieur!_" begged François, as the stern grey eyes went from his face to that of the unhappy Jacques. "It is the band-box that contains your stockings--the stockings _aux oiseaux-mouches_! Ah, would that I had carried it myself! Would that--" "Would that you would be quiet!" said Philip severely. "If either of you have lost those stockings ..." He paused, and once more his eyes travelled from one to the other. "I shall seek another valet." François became tearful. "Ah, no, no, m'sieur! It is this _imbécile_, this _crapaud_--" "_M'sieu, je vous implore_--" Philip pointed dramatically across the room. Both men looked fearfully in the direction of that accusing finger.