short time, Loony returned to the
fireplace, still crawling on his knees; then rising, he again took his
basket half full of wood, and once more approaching the door at which he
had listened knocked discreetly. No one answered. He knocked a second
time, and more loudly. Still there was the same silence.

Then he said, in a harsh, squeaking, laughable voice: "Ladies, do you
want any wood, if you please, for your fire?"

Receiving no answer, Loony placed his basket on the ground, opened the
door gently, and entered the next room, after casting a rapid glance
around. He came out again in a few seconds, looking from side to side
with an anxious air, like a man who had just accomplished some important
and mysterious task.

Taking up his basket, he was about to leave Marshal Simon's room, when
the door of the private staircase was opened slowly and with precaution,
and Dagobert appeared.

The soldier, evidently surprised at the servant's presence, knitted his
brows, and exclaimed abruptly, "What are you doing here?"

At this sudden interrogation, accompanied by a growl expressive of the
ill-humor of Spoil-sport, who followed close on his master's heels, Loony
uttered a cry of real or pretended terror. To give, perhaps, an
appearance of greater reality to his dread, the supposed simpleton let
his basket fall on the ground, as if astonishment and fear had loosened
his hold of it.

"What are you doing, numbskull?" resumed Dagobert, whose countenance was
impressed with deep sadness, and who seemed little disposed to laugh at
the fellow's stupidity.

"Oh, M. Dagobert! how you frighten me! Dear me! what a pity I had not an
armful of plates, to prove it was not my fault if I broke them all."

"I ask what you are doing," resumed the soldier.

"You see, M. Dagobert," replied Loony, pointing to his basket, "that I
came with some wood to master's room, so that he might burn it, if it was
cold--which it is."

"Very well. Pick up your wood, and begone!"

"Oh, M. Dagobert! my legs tremble under me. How you did scare me, to be
sure!"

"Will you begone, brute?" resumed the veteran; and seizing Loony by the
arm, he pushed him towards the door, while Spoil-sport, with recumbent
ears, and hair standing up like the quills of a porcupine, seemed
inclined to accelerate his retreat.

"I am going, M. Dagobert, I am going," replied the simpleton, as he
hastily gathered up his basket; "only please to tell the dog--"

"Go to the devil