re getting a lesson for nothing.
What did he say then?"

"Something about losing something, it seemed to me. I thought I caught
the word perdu."

"But that means a partridge, doesn't it? I'm sure I've seen it on the
menus."

"Would he talk about partridges at a time like this?"

"He might. The French are extraordinary people."

"Well, I'll have another go at him. But he's a difficult chap to chat
with. If you give him the least encouragement, he sort of goes off like
a rocket." He addressed another question to the sufferer, and listened
attentively to the voluble reply.

"Oh!" he said with sudden enlightenment. "Your job?" He turned to Sally.
"I got it that time," he said. "The trouble is, he says, that if we yell
and rouse the house, we'll get out all right, but he will lose his job,
because this is the second time this sort of thing has happened, and
they warned him last time that once more would mean the push."

"Then we mustn't dream of yelling," said Sally, decidedly. "It means
a pretty long wait, you know. As far as I can gather, there's just a
chance of somebody else coming in later, in which case he could let
us out. But it's doubtful. He rather thinks that everybody has gone to
roost."

"Well, we must try it. I wouldn't think of losing the poor man his job.
Tell him to take the car down to the ground-floor, and then we'll just
sit and amuse ourselves till something happens. We've lots to talk
about. We can tell each other the story of our lives."

Jules, cheered by his victims' kindly forbearance, lowered the car to
the ground floor, where, after a glance of infinite longing at the keys
on the distant desk, the sort of glance which Moses must have cast at
the Promised Land from the summit of Mount Pisgah, he sagged down in a
heap and resumed his slumbers. Sally settled herself as comfortably as
possible in her corner.

"You'd better smoke," she said. "It will be something to do."

"Thanks awfully."

"And now," said Sally, "tell me why Scrymgeour fired you."

Little by little, under the stimulating influence of this nocturnal
adventure, the red-haired young man had lost that shy confusion which
had rendered him so ill at ease when he had encountered Sally in the
hall of the hotel; but at this question embarrassment gripped him once
more. Another of those comprehensive blushes of his raced over his face,
and he stammered.

"I say, I'm glad... I'm fearfully sorry about that, you know!"

"About