"Nonsense! A rabbit with nails in its shoes!"
"All this seems to me decidedly peculiar," said Férulus.
"There you see that it is peculiar," cried Jeannette, "and that we ought to be afraid."
"I don't say that. Things which seem to us marvelous at a distance are often perfectly natural when examined at close quarters. Indeed, there are some which lose a good deal by being looked at too closely. But before pronouncing definitely upon this, I would like to assure myself with my own eyes of the truth, for _pluris est oculatus unus quam auriti decem_!"
"You see!" said Cunette, "that means that it's all nonsense, and that you dreamed it all."
"No, it doesn't mean that, at all!" continued Férulus. "My dear Cunette, you do not translate literally. I think, _primo_, that there is something or nothing. That is my principle, and I start from that, because one should start from a principle."
"Well! I say that there ain't anything," said Mademoiselle Cheval, "and that they was frightened by their own _shades_!"
"Why!" said Jeannette, "monsieur is a scholar, you must know--for he has shown me a whole heap of things already, me----"
"That's all right, Jeannette! that is between ourselves," said Férulus, nudging the stout girl's arm; "but don't branch off from the question."
"Well, monsieur," replied Jeannette, "tell us once for all whether there is any ghosts or isn't."
"Yes, that's it," said the other servants; "then at least we shall know what to think."
"My children," said Férulus, after blowing his nose at great length, "the question that you put to me is a thorny one. Hippocrates says yes and Galen says no!"
"But we don't ask you for Monsieur Pocrates's opinion," said Mademoiselle Cheval, "for it's yours that we want."
"My dear _coqua_, otherwise called cook, do not interrupt me, if you please. You wish to know whether there are or have been ghosts, or if we ought still to believe in them; that is the problem propounded; I start from that. I embark my reply upon the vessel of my lips, to cross the stormy sea of your attention, and to reach at last the blessed haven of your ears!"
"Look here, monsieur, if you are going to talk a foreign language, we shall never understand you!" said Jeannette.