"Thanks, little rat!" they told Jean. "We will remember you another time!" and the great gates were shut and barred for the night. Jean found himself in a narrow cell in company with seven other persons completely unknown to him, and they all slept together on a filthy mattress of straw. Next day, however, Jean was removed from the common hall and placed in a tiny, uncomfortable cell by himself. "What's this for, my friend?" he demanded of the turnkey. "It's because you are a dangerous conspirator, and it has been commanded to keep you in solitary confinement!" he was told. "Here's a pretty pass!" thought Jean. "How plainly we see the finger of La Souris in this pie!" And he sat down on his straw mattress to think it over. EXIT THE COBBLER CHAPTER XI EXIT THE COBBLER Louis Charles Capet sat on his rough wooden chair by a table, anxiously eyeing the door, and listening nervously for the slightest sound. Simon was not with him, having gone up on the platform by himself for a little airing. Madame Simon sat knitting in another corner of the room. Just for a while the child was enjoying one of his rare intervals of peace, free from violence, insult and terror. Had one watched him, it would soon have become evident that he was waiting for something,--waiting, longing, with every nerve tense, for some desired event. It was the day that the laundry should come back, and the child knew it. Therefore with all his heart he was hoping for one of those infrequent visits with Yvonne, the sole pleasure in his weary little existence. It was long since she last came to him. For a while nothing was heard in the room but the click of Madame Simon's knitting-needles, and the chirp and flutter of five or six canaries in a big gilt cage on the table. It was through the goodness of the kind-hearted Meunier, another commissary, that the child had been allowed this plaything. Pitying his forlorn and empty life, Meunier had obtained permission to have placed in the room a gilt cage that he had found in the store-room of the Temple. This cage contained an artificial canary, which when wound up would whistle the air, "O Richard! O, my king!" At first Louis Charles was immensely pleased with this toy, thinking that the bird was alive and a captive like himself. But when he discovered that it was only an automaton, he lost all interest and apathetically refused to be entertained by it. Then good-natured Meunier scoured the neighbourhood and brought him some live canaries to put with the mechanical one.