As may easily be supposed, Max’s rooms were worthy of so charming a youth. And in six years, year by year, the Major had made the comfort of his lodgings more perfect, and added grace to the smallest details, as much for his own sake as for Flore’s. Still, it was only the comfort of Issoudun; painted floors, wallpapers of some elegance, mahogany furniture, mirrors in gilt frames, muslin curtains with red bands to loop them, an Arabian bedstead with curtains hung as a country upholsterer arranges them for a wealthy bride, and which then seemed the height of magnificence, but which are to be seen in the commonest fashion-plates, and are so general now that in Paris even petty dealers will not have them when they marry. Then—an unheard-of thing, which gave rise to much talk in Issoudun—there was matting on the stairs, to deaden noise no doubt! And, in fact, Max, as he came in before daybreak, woke nobody, and Rouget never suspected his lodger’s share in the dark deeds of the Knights of Idlesse.
At about eight in the morning Flore, in a pretty pink-striped cotton wrapper and a lace cap, her feet in furred slippers, gently opened Max’s bedroom door, but seeing him asleep, she stood a moment by the bed.
“He came in so late,” thought she; “at half-past three. A man must be made of iron to be able to stand such racket as that! And isn’t he strong too?—The love of a man! I wonder what they were doing last night!”
“You, my little Flore,” said Max, waking as a soldier wakes, inured by the vicissitudes of war to find all his wits and his presence of mind however suddenly he may be roused.
“You are sleepy; I am going …”
“No, stay; there are serious things—”
“You have done something too mad last night?”
“Ah, pooh! The matter in hand concerns that old fool. Look here; you never mentioned his family. Well, they are coming here—his family is coming, to cut us out no doubt.”
“Oh, I will give them a startler!” said Flore.
“Mademoiselle Brazier,” said Max gravely, “matters are too serious to be taken at a rush. Send me up my coffee; I will have it in bed, where I will consider what proceedings we must take. … Come back at nine, and we will talk it over. Meanwhile behave as if you had heard nothing.”
Startled by this news, Flore left Max, and went to make his coffee; but a quarter of an hour later Baruch rushed in and said to the Grand Master, “Fario is looking for his cart.”
Max was dressed in five minutes, went downstairs, and with an air of lounging for his pleasure, made his way to the foot of the tower hill, where he saw a considerable crowd.
“What is the matter?” said Max, making his way through the mob to speak to the Spaniard.
Fario, a small, shriveled man, was ugly enough to have been a grandee. His very fiery, very small eyes, very close together, would have earned him at Naples a reputation for the evil eye. The little man seemed gentle because he was grave, quiet, and slow in his movements; and he was commonly spoken of as bonhomme, good old Fario. But his complexion, of the color of gingerbread, and his gentle manner, concealed from the ignorant, but betrayed to the knowing, his character as a half-Moorish peasant from Granada, who had not yet been roused from his torpid indifference.
“But are you sure,” said Max, after listening to the lamentations of the seed-merchant, “that you brought your cart? For, thank Heaven, we have no thieves in Issoudun …”
“I left it there …”
“But if the horse was harnessed to it, may he not have gone away with the cart?”
“There is my horse,” said Fario, pointing to his steed standing harnessed about thirty yards off.
Max solemnly went to the spot, so as to be able by looking up to see the foot of the tower, for the people had collected at the bottom of the hill. Everybody followed him, and this was what the rascal wanted.
“Has anyone by mistake put a cart in his pocket?” cried François.
“Come, feel, turn them out!” said Baruch. Shouts of laughter rose on all sides. Fario swore; now in a Spaniard an oath means the last pitch of fury.
“Is yours a light cart?” asked Max.
“Light?” retorted Fario. “If all those who are laughing at me had it over their toes, their corns would not hurt them again.”
“Well, but it must be devilish light,” replied Max, pointing to the tower, “for it has flown to the top of the hill.”
At these words all looked up, and for a moment there was almost a riot in the marketplace. Everyone was pointing to this magical vehicle. Every tongue was wagging.
“The Devil has a care for the innkeepers, who are all doomed to perdition,” said Goddet to the speechless owner; “he wants to teach you not to leave carts about instead of putting up at the inn.”
At this speech the mob howled, for Fario was reckoned miserly.
“Come, my good man,” said Max, “do not lose heart. We will go up and see how the cart got there. The deuce is in it! We will lend you a hand. Will you come, Baruch?—You,” he added in a whisper to François, “clear everyone out of the way, and mind there is no one standing below when you see us at the top.”
Fario, with Max, Baruch, and three more of the Knights, climbed up to the tower. During the scramble, which was not free from danger, Max remarked to Fario that there were no tracks, nor anything to show how the cart had been got up. And Fario began to believe in some magic; he had quite lost
