Page:Crainquebille, Putois, Riquet and other profitable tales, 1915.djvu/96

82 fro she noticed Riquet's attitude. It was sad: but to her it seemed funny, and she began to laugh. Then, still laughing, she called out: "Come here! Riquet, come to me!" But he did not stir from his corner, and would not even turn his head. He was not then in the mood to caress his young mistress, and, through some secret instinct, through a kind of presentiment, he was afraid of approaching the gaping trunk. Pauline called him several times. Then, as he did not respond, she went and took him up in her arms. "How unhappy we are!" she said to him; "what is wrong then?" Her tone was ironical. Riquet did not understand irony. He lay in Pauline's arms, sad and inert, affecting to see nothing and to hear nothing. "Riquet, look at me!" She said it three times and three times in vain. Then, pretending to be in a rage: "Silly creature," she cried, "in with you"; and she threw him into the trunk and shut the lid on him. At that moment her aunt having called her, she went out of the room, leaving Riquet in the trunk.

He was seized with wild alarm; for he was very far from supposing that he had been playfully thrown into the trunk for a mere joke. Esteeming his situation about as bad as it could be, he was desirous not to make it worse by any imprudence. So he