Then a voice called, "Number 36!" "What is it ?" replied Gervaise, without raising himself from his seat on the bedding.

"I have done my share of work today, and earned my night's sleep." "It is a knight from the English auberge; he has come to fetch you.

It seems that you are to go there as a servitor." "What a cursed fortune," Gervaise muttered, in Turkish, "just when a road to freedom is open! I have a good mind to say I am ill, and cannot go till the morning." "No, no!" one of the others exclaimed.

"They would only drag you out, and when they saw that there was naught the matter with you, would suspect that there must be some reason why you did not want to go, when, as every one knows, the position of the servitors is in every way preferable to ours." "Now then, why are you delaying ?" a voice said sharply, and a warder entered with a lighted torch.

"Get up, you lazy hound! It will be worse for you if I have to speak again." "I am coming," Gervaise grumbled.