VII
IN WHICH OUR LANDLORD BECOMES
BOTH ENTERTAINING AND INSTRUCTIVE

THE experiences of the previous day had left their mark in stiffened joints and blistered hands. Herbert was nursing a wrenched finger, Lemois had discovered a bruised back, and Louis a strained wrist—slight accidents all of them, unheeded in the excitement of the rescue, and only definitely located when the several victims got out of bed the next morning.

The real sufferer was Gaston. Two stitches had been taken in his shapely head and, although he was quite himself and restless as a goat, the doctor had given positive orders to Leà to keep him where he was until his wound should heal. To this Lemois had added another and far more cruel mandate, forbidding Mignon either outside or inside his bedroom door under pain of death, or words to that effect.