The troop reached Paris very much diminished, but sufficiently considerable to attract the attention of the passers by, and to be followed by a crowd of idle people. M. Bucquet, who beheld all this assemblage collected at his house, asked what it was all about; and while they were giving him an explanation, Joseph found an opportunity of taking George on one side, and relating to him the whole affair. George was furious, and commanded him to go at once and take the dog away, which Joseph refused to do for fear of being seen.
"I will say that it was you," exclaimed George.
"I will say that you tell a falsehood," replied Joseph.
George took him by the ears in order to force him up stairs.
George, notwithstanding his anger, saw that there was but one course to be pursued. He left Joseph, ran up stairs, attained the leads, entered his room and sought for the dog, determined, if requisite, to pass the night with him upon the roof; but he sought in vain. As Joseph had left the doors open, M. le Chevalier had had all the apartments at his disposal. Where could he be hidden? It was getting dusk, and the dog was small, George could not perceive him anywhere, and he was persuading himself that Joseph had been making game of him, and was about returning by the way that he had entered, when the animal scenting his master at the door, rushed from under a bed, howling most lamentably.
"It is impossible," exclaimed M. Roussel, precipitately opening the door. He stood perfectly stupified when he beheld his son and the dog in the middle of the room, without being able to understand in the least by what means they had got there.
"I knew it would be so," said William triumphantly.
George, stifled with shame and anger, and rendered furious by the invectives with which he was overwhelmed from all sides, protested that it was not he, but Joseph who did it. The neighbours, delighted at finding him in fault, were indignant that he should throw the blame upon another. M. Bucquet, who knew that if Joseph were the culprit, he should have to pay the damages, flew into a violent passion with George; and Madame Bucquet, terrified lest her husband should beat Joseph, became still louder and more violent in her invectives: M. Roussel thought that, right or wrong, he ought to take his son's part; William and his father were clamouring to be paid, and M. le Chevalier howled like a dog who had had no dinner.
