He escaped!"
"You're lying!" the coachman said.
"Tibul is alive!" the flower girls cried joyfully.
The boy stole a rose from one of the bowls and dashed off.
Several drops from the wet flower landed on the doctor.
He wiped them off his face. They were as bitter as tears. Then he came closer to hear what else the beggar would say.
But something happened then that stopped the conversation.
A strange procession was coming down the street.
At the head of it were two men on horseback carrying lighted torches which flowed in the wind like fiery beards.
Rolling slowly behind them was a black carriage with a coat of arms painted on the door.
Behind the carriage came the carpenters.
There were a hundred carpenters in all.
Their sleeves were rolled up, they were ready for work. They wore aprons and carried their saws, planes and tool boxes.
Guards rode along both sides of the procession.
They had to keep reining in their horses, for the animals wanted to gallop off.
"What's going on?
What's all this about?" people in the street asked each other anxiously.
Sitting in the black carriage with the coat of arms on the door was an official of the Council of the Three Fat Men.
The flower girls were frightened.
They pressed their hands to their cheeks as they looked at his head.
It could be seen through the carriage window.
The street was brightly lit.
The black-wigged head bobbed up and down.
It looked as if a big bird was inside the carriage.
"Move along! Get moving!" the Guards shouted.
"Where are the carpenters going?" a little flower girl asked the Captain of the Guards.
"The carpenters are going to build scaffolds! Now do you understand? The carpenters are going to build ten scaffolds!" he shouted right in her face and so fiercely that her hair blew in all directions.
"Oh!"
The flower girl dropped her bowl.
The water with the floating roses poured out on the pavement.
"They're going to build scaffolds!" the doctor repeated in terror.
"Yes, scaffolds!" the Guard shouted, turning back and baring his teeth. Above them were moustaches that looked like boots. "Scaffolds for all the rebels!
They'll all have their heads chopped off!
All who dare rise up against the Three Fat Men!"
The doctor felt dizzy.
He thought he might faint.
"It's been too much for one day," he thought. "Besides, I'm awfully hungry and tired.
I'd better hurry back home."
Yes, it was about time the doctor got some rest.
He was so overcome by all that had happened, by all he had seen and heard, that he didn't even think his flight together with the tower earlier in the day was very unusual. He was not even bothered by the loss of his hat. cape, walking-stick, and the heels of his shoes.
Worst of all, though, was that he had lost his spectacles.
So he hired a cab and headed for home.
CHAPTER THREE
STAR SQUARE
As the doctor drove along the broad paved streets that were brighter than parlours, a chain of street lights rushed past the carriage.
The lights were like glass balls filled with bright boiling milk.
Clouds of tiny insects buzzed, fluttered and died round the glass balls.
The carnage rolled along embankments, past high stone walls on which bronze lions holding shields in their paws stuck out their long tongues.
Below the water flowed sluggishly, black and shiny as tar.
The town was reflected upside-down in the water, it was trying to float away, but it couldn't get loose and dissolved in soft golden spots instead.