The chocolates, which proved to be eighteen in number, were fairly divided, Boy refusing to accept more than his half.  We each ate one with distaste, because the celebrated “Right Spot” was not to be pacified by unsuitable sacrifices; but presently it relented and demanded more.  Appeased for the moment, the Spot allowed us to proceed, but incredibly soon it began again to clamour.  We ate several more chocolates, though our gorge rose against them as a means of refreshment.  Still Bourg St. Pierre, where we were sooner or later to sleep, was far away, and for the third time we were driven to chocolate.  It was a loathsome business eating the remaining morsels of our supply, and we felt that the very name of the food would in future be abhorrent to us.  The night had become unfriendly, the Pass a Via Dolorosa, and the last drop was poured into our cup of misery at Bourg St. Pierre.

We had wired from the Hospice for rooms, and expected to find the little “Dejeuner” cheerfully lighted, the plump landlady amusingly surprised to see the guests who had lately brought dissension into her house returning peaceably together.  But the roadside inn was asleep like a comfortable white goose with its head under its wing.  Not a gleam in any window, save the bleak glint of moonlight on glass.

Joseph and Innocentina were behind us with their charges, whose stored crusts of bread they had probably shared.  I knocked at the doors No responsive sound from within.  I pounded with my walking stick.  A thin imp of echo mocked us, and, my worst passions roused by this inhospitality falling on top of nine chocolate creams, I almost beat the door down.

Two sleepy eyelid-windows flew up, and a moment later a little servant who had served me the other afternoon, appeared at the door like a frightened rabbit at bay.

I demanded the wherefore of this reception; I demanded rooms and food and reparation.  What, was I the monsieur who had telegraphed from the Hospice?  But madame had answered that she had not a room in the house.  The carriage of a large party of very high nobility had broken down late in the afternoon, and they were remaining for the night, until the damage could be repaired.  What to do?  But there was nothing, unless les messieurs would sleep, one on the sofa, the other on the floor, in the room of the “dejeuner.”

“I suppose we’ll have to put up with that accommodation, then.  What do you say, Boy?” I asked.

“I would rather go on,” he replied, in a tone of misery tempered by desperate resignation, as if he had been giving orders for his own funeral.

“Go on where?” I enquired grimly.

“I don’t know.  Anywhere.”

“‘Anywhere’ means in this instance the open road.”

“Well—­I’m not so very cold, are you?  And I’m sure they’ll give us a little bread and cheese here.”

“I think it would be wiser to stop,” said I.  “We might see the ghost of Napoleon eating the dejeuner.  Isn’t that an inducement?”