“Oh, there you are, my little Flore!” said Max, waking like a soldier trained by the necessities of war to have his wits and his self-possession about him the instant that he waked, however suddenly it might happen.

“You are sleepy; I’ll go away.”

“No, stay; there’s something serious going on.”

“Were you up to some mischief last night?”

“Ah, bah!  It concerns you and me and that old fool.  You never told me he had a family!  Well, his family are coming,—­coming here,—­no doubt to turn us out, neck and crop.”

“Ah!  I’ll shake him well,” said Flore.

“Mademoiselle Brazier,” said Max gravely, “things are too serious for giddiness.  Send me my coffee; I’ll take it in bed, where I’ll think over what we had better do.  Come back at nine o’clock, and we’ll talk about it.  Meanwhile, behave as if you had heard nothing.”

Frightened at the news, Flore left Max and went to make his coffee; but a quarter of an hour later, Baruch burst into Max’s bedroom, crying out to the grand master,—­

“Fario is hunting for his barrow!”

In five minutes Max was dressed and in the street, and though he sauntered along with apparent indifference, he soon reached the foot of the tower embankment, where he found quite a collection of people.

“What is it?” asked Max, making his way through the crowd and reaching the Spaniard.

Fario was a withered little man, as ugly as though he were a blue-blooded grandee.  His fiery eyes, placed very close to his nose and piercing as a gimlet, would have won him the name of a sorcerer in Naples.  He seemed gentle because he was calm, quiet, and slow in his movements; and for this reason people commonly called him “goodman Fario.”  But his skin—­the color of gingerbread—­and his softness of manner only hid from stupid eyes, and disclosed to observing ones, the half-Moorish nature of a peasant of Granada, which nothing had as yet roused from its phlegmatic indolence.

“Are you sure,” Max said to him, after listening to his grievance, “that you brought your cart to this place? for, thank God, there are no thieves in Issoudun.”

“I left it just there—­”

“If the horse was harnessed to it, hasn’t he drawn it somewhere.”

“Here’s the horse,” said Fario, pointing to the animal, which stood harnessed thirty feet away.

Max went gravely up to the place where the horse stood, because from there the bottom of the tower at the top of the embankment could be seen,—­the crowd being at the foot of the mound.  Everybody followed Max, and that was what the scoundrel wanted.

“Has anybody thoughtlessly put a cart in his pocket?” cried Francois.

“Turn out your pockets, all of you!” said Baruch.

Shouts of laughter resounded on all sides.  Fario swore.  Oaths, with a Spaniard, denote the highest pitch of anger.

“Was your cart light?” asked Max.