“But the fire is out in the kitchen,” objected Misery, in the spirit of Pierrot’s friend.

“Then let it be re-lighted,” commanded Madame.  “At such times as these, the fire has not the right to be out.”

Monsieur marshalled us into the cafe, a large long room forming part of the hotel; by no means the best waiting-place after a long and tiring day.  It was hot, blazing with gas, clouded with smoke—­the usual French smoke, worse than the worst of English tobacco.  The room was crowded, the noise pandemonium.  Card playing occupied some tables, dominoes others.  The company was very much what might be expected at a Horse Fair:  loud, familiar, slightly inclined to be quarrelsome; no nerves.  Our host joined a card table, evidently taking up his game where our arrival had interrupted it.  He soon became absorbed and forgot our existence; our hope was in Madame.

[Illustration:  MORLAIX.]

We waited in patience; the short quarter of an hour developed into a long half-hour, when tea arrived:  small cups, small tea pot, usual strainer, straw-coloured infusion; still, it just saved our reason.  H.C. felt that he should never write another line of poetry; the tobacco fumes had taken an opium effect upon me, and I began to see visions and imagined ourselves in Dante’s Inferno.  We looked with mild reproach at the waiter.  He quite understood; a guilty conscience needed no words; and explained that the chef had let out the fire.  As the chef was at that moment in the cafe playing cards, as absorbed and excited as anyone, no wonder that he had forgotten his ordinary duties.

“And our rooms?” we asked.  “Are they ready?”

“The theatre is not yet over,” replied the waiter.  “Madame is on the look-out.  The play is extra long to-night in honour of the fair.”

That miserable fair!

The tea revived us:  it always does.  “I feel less like expiring,” murmured H.C., with a tremulous sigh.  “But this place is like a furnace seven times heated, and the noise is pandemonium in revolt.  What would Lady Maria think of this?  Why need that frivolous butcher-woman have gone to the theatre to-night of all nights in the year?  And why need all these people have stayed away from it?  Why is everything upside down and cross and contrary?  And why are we here at all?”

H.C. was evidently on the verge of brain fever.

We waited; there was nothing else for it.  It was torture; but others have been tortured before now; and some have survived, and some have died of it.  We felt that we should die of it.  Half past eleven had come and gone; midnight was about to strike.  Oh that we had gone on with that wretched omnibus, no matter what the end.  Yes; it had come to that.

At last human nature could bear it no longer:  we appealed to the landlord.  He looked up from his game, flushed, startled and repentant.

“What! have they not taken you to the bouchere!” he exclaimed.  “Why the theatre was over long ago, and no doubt everything is arranged.  You shall be conducted at once.”