It was the
midnight chime.
Rob clutched his ears tightly, and when the vibrations had died away
descended by the ladder to a lower platform. But even here the next
hourly chime made his ears ring, and he kept descending from platform
to platform until the last half of a restless night was passed in the
little room at the bottom of the tower.
When, at daylight, the boy sat up and rubbed his eyes, he said,
wearily: "Churches are all right as churches; but as hotels they are
rank failures. I ought to have bunked in with my friend, King Edward."
He climbed up the stairs and the ladders again and looked out the
little window in the belfry. Then he examined his map of Europe.
"I believe I'll take a run over to Paris," he thought. "I must be
home again by Saturday, to meet the Demon, so I'll have to make every
day count."
Without waiting for breakfast, since he had eaten a tablet the evening
before, he crept through the window and mounted into the fresh morning
air until the great city with its broad waterway lay spread out
beneath him. Then he sped away to the southeast and, crossing the
channel, passed between Amiens and Rouen and reached Paris before
ten o'clock.
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