"But not _me_!" replied Jane, with cool determination. "I am resolved to go on, I repeat it, to the utmost limits of the possible!"
"Well, we have one certainty at least," began Atkins after a brief pause; "the German master with whom young Erdmann was at work when the war broke out, is still here. You know that yesterday, I went from the mayoralty, where I received this intelligence, directly to the designated house. But I found it closed, all its inmates fled to the just arrived Prussian regiments, among whom they hoped to find countrymen. This information I obtained from a very peculiar conversation with an exceedingly talkative neighbor; peculiar, I may well say, for she understood no English and I no French, and we were forced to call a very expressive pantomime to our aid, by means of which I made her comprehend that my visit was designed for Monsieur Erdmann and his master, that I would return to-day, and that I should be infinitely obliged to her if she would hand my card to the latter. Thus far our pantomime brought us, and now I am curious to know what sort of unavoidable confusion Madame has made out of the slang."
Jane glanced at her watch. "It is now half-past nine, and I think we ought to get ready to go out."
The answer which Atkins was about to give, was interrupted by a knocking at the door. It was opened, and an old man with white hair, simply but not poorly clad, and with a modest, friendly manner, entered, and immediately addressed himself in good French to the two strangers.
"I beg your pardon, but they showed me up here. I am the master joiner Vogt, Rue de--. A strange gentleman inquired for me yesterday, and left a card with his address which I understood as a request for me to call on him. I trust I have come to the right place?"
Atkins naturally understood nothing of these words. But Jane, who was perfect mistress of French, translated all he needed to hear, and then turned to the visitor.
"You are quite right, but the gentleman's visit was not to you, it was to a young man who, they tell us, works with you. He is in any event, a German, and a journeyman carpenter, Franz Erdmann. We are in search of him, and were just about visiting you again on his account."