_"
"Ah, now we know where we are." George looked round triumphantly.
"_Ecoutez, Madame._ We don't want beds. _Nous les desirons jamais._
We have them. _Trois lits._ We don't want them. We have beds.
_Comprenez?_"
"No beds," explained Madame firmly.
"But I've just told you--" George plunged again into the maelstrom,
and a pretty girl appeared from the firelit room behind to stir him
to his highest flights of eloquence. A smell of savoury cooking
came also, and out in the street night shut down dark and chill and
sinister, as it does in all the best novels. John let part of the
kit down on the door-sill. It was his way of explaining that at the
present moment there was a deeper, more intimate call than the Call of
the Wild. Colin moved up a step and turned the haunting-stop full on.
George redoubled his efforts, making them very clear indeed. We could
understand almost every word he said.
Then Madame answered, and we could understand that too.
"No beds," she said.
The pretty girl smiled in a troubled way and murmured something in a
soft voice.
"She says they haven't got any beds in the rooms.
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