"You stay there, Broubrou!" said Pongo to a tall Voltaire easy-chair. "You all right, you satisfied, all brushed, all cleaned, all ready for master to use, unless he take Babo, the little horsehair chair. Oh! Babo, you'd be mighty pleased if master took you instead of Madame Broubrou! she take up much more room.--There! now you all cleaned, well rubbed, good 'nough to eat.--But I forget Zima; where you hide yourself, Zima? oh! no good for you to hide yourself, I know all right how to find you."
And the mulatto looked in every corner of the room, and at last succeeded in finding a small bamboo cane with a gilt head. It was that cane to which Pongo had given the name of Zima. He took it up and shook it impatiently, muttering:
"Ah! Mamzelle Zima, you try to make fun of Pongo and keep out of sight a long time. Suppose me cross and not rub you head to make you shine, how you like that, eh, Mamzelle Zima?"
At this point, the scene between the mulatto and the cane was interrupted by shouts of laughter. They came from Georget, who, not being used to the customs of Africa, had been unable to restrain longer the desire to laugh, caused by the faithful Pongo's monologue. He turned when he heard the laughter, and seeing the youth, began to laugh too, and, cane in hand, to take several steps of a strange dance which recalled the famous dance of the _Cocos,_ performed in all the melodramas in which negroes are introduced.
A ring at the bell interrupted this extemporaneous ballet; Pongo dropped Mademoiselle Zima, and left the study, saying:
"That's master, he ring for me; he awake, I go tell him that you waiting."
A few moments later the mulatto returned, and ushered Georget into Monsieur Malberg's bedroom; that gentleman was enveloped in an ample dressing-gown and held a newspaper, which he seemed to be reading.
He glanced at Georget, who remained bashfully in the doorway of the room, twisting his cap about in his hands.
"It's you, is it, young man? What do you want of me so early in the morning? Is your mother sicker?"
"Oh, no! thanks to heaven and to you, monsieur! But I have come because I found this twenty francs in the pocket in which monsieur was kind enough to put some herbs for me to make my mother some tea. It was another kindness on monsieur's part, no doubt, but he is too kind; we must not keep this money, for it would take us too long to return it; and so I have brought the twenty francs back."