haunting up to form (which was
likely, as he had been over-fed lately) or George's French (which was
never made in the place where they make marriages) had scandalised
Madame.

She stood in the door like some historical personage, probably the
Sphinx, and repeated a guttural kind of incantation while George
stretched his ears until they stood out more than usual in a struggle
to understand.

"Rotten patois some of these people speak," he said. "I believe she
has a room, though something's biting her. Likely enough Fritz went
off with all her furniture; but I've already explained twenty times
that that doesn't matter. _Ecoutez, Madame._ We only want a room.
_Chambre-a-coucher._ We can furnish it. We have three beds. _Trois
lits._ _Trois_ stretcher-beds sent over from _Angleterre_. _A la
gare._ We've just seen them. _Trois lits nous avons._ Three beds."

"Beds!" Madame pounced on the word. "_C'est cela!_ No beds,
_Monsieur_. _Je n'en ai pas._"

"Ah, now we know where we are." George looked round triumphantly.
"_Ecoutez, Madame._ We don't want beds. _Nous les desirons jamais._
We have them. _Trois lits._ We don't want them. We have beds.
_Comprenez?_"

"No beds," explained Madame firmly.

"But I've just told you--" George plunged again into the maelstrom,
and a pretty girl appeared from the firelit room behind to stir him
to his highest flights of eloquence. A smell of savoury cooking
came also, and out in the street night shut down dark and chill and
sinister, as it does in all the best novels. John let part of the
kit down on the door-sill. It was his way of explaining that at the
present moment there was a deeper, more intimate call than the Call of
the Wild. Colin moved up a step and turned the haunting-stop full on.
George redoubled his efforts, making them very clear indeed. We could
understand almost every word he said.

Then Madame answered, and we could understand that too.

"No beds," she said.

The pretty girl smiled in a troubled way and murmured something in a
soft voice.

"She says they haven't got any beds in the rooms. Fritz took them
all," interpreted George. "_Ecoutez, Mademoiselle_. We have beds.
_Trois lits. Nous les avons. Tous les trois. Oui. A la gare.
Absolument_."

Mademoiselle looked at Madame with a kink of her pretty brows. Madame
rose like a balloon to the need.

"No beds," she said very distinctly, with a rounding of eyes and
mouth. "No beds, Messieurs. No-o-o--_beds_."

Be