"'What distresses you, my poor Gottlieb?'
"'At midnight, my mother came from the cell, and said to my father, "No. 3 is very sick to-night. She has the fever sadly. We must send for the doctor. I would not like to have her die on our hands." My mother thought I was asleep, but I determined not to be so, until I found out what she said. I knew you had the fever, and when I heard it was dangerous I could not help weeping, until sleep overcame me. I think, however, I wept in my sleep, for when I awoke this morning, my eyes were like fire, and my pillow was wet.'"
"I was much moved at the attachment of poor Gottlieb, and I thanked him, shaking his great black paw, which smells of leather and wax a league off. The idea then occurred to me, that in his simple zeal the poor lad might have paid me the visit. I asked him if he had not got up and come to listen at the door. He assured me that he had not stirred, and I am fully satisfied that he had not. The place in which he sleeps is so situated that in my room I can hear his sighs through a fissure in the wall, perhaps through the hollow in which I keep my journal and money. Who knows but this opening communicates secretly with that near the chimney in which Gottlieb keeps his treasures--his books and his tools. In this particular he and I are alike, for each of us, like rats or bats, has a nest in the wall in which we bury our riches. I was about to make some interrogations, when I saw a personage leave Swartz's house and come toward me. I had not as yet seen him here, and his appearance filled me with terror, though I was far from being sure that I was not mistaken about him.
"'Who is that man?' said I to Gottlieb, in a low tone.
"'No great things,' said he. 'He is the new adjutant. Look how Belzebub bows his back, and rubs against his legs. They know each other well.'
"Gottlieb was about to answer, when the adjutant said, with a mild voice and good-humored smile, pointing to the kitchen--
"This was only a pretext to be alone with me, and Gottlieb left. I was alone, and found myself face to face with whom--friend Beppo, think you? With the very recruiter whom we met so unfortunately in the Boehmer-wald, two years ago. It was Mayer. I could not mistake him, for, except that he had become fat, he was unchanged. He was the same man, with his pleasant manners, his simple bearing, his false face, his perfidious good humor, and his _broum, broum_, as if he was imitating the trumpet. From the band, he had been promoted to the department of finding food for powder, and as a recompense for his good service in that position, had been made a garrison officer, or rather a military jailer, for which he was as well calculated as he was for his old position of travelling turnkey, which he had discharged so well.