ple but they ate well and without words.
Even when they had finished and undressed for the night, they said very
little.
"Where do our thoughts go when we are asleep," The Rat inquired
casually after he was stretched out in the darkness. "They must go
somewhere. Let's send them to find out what to do next."
"It's not as still as it was on the Gaisberg. You can hear the city
roaring," said Marco drowsily from his dark corner. "We must make a
ledge--for ourselves."
Sleep made it for them--deep, restful, healthy sleep. If they had been
more resentful of their ill luck and lost labor, it would have come
less easily and have been less natural. In their talks of strange
things they had learned that one great secret of strength and
unflagging courage is to know how to "let go"--to cease thinking over
an anxiety until the right moment comes. It was their habit to "let
go" for hours sometimes, and wander about looking at places and
things--galleries, museums, palaces, giving themselves up with boyish
pleasure and eagerness to all they saw. Marco was too intimate with
the things worth seeing, and The Rat too curious and feverishly
wide-awake to allow of their missing much.
The Rat's image of the world had grown until it seemed to know no
boundaries which could hold its wealth of wonders. He wanted to go on
and on and see them all.
When Marco opened his eyes in the morning, he found The Rat lying
looking at him. Then they both sat up in bed at the same time.
"I believe we are both thinking the same thing," Marco said.
They frequently discovered that they were thinking the same things.
"So do I," answered The Rat. "It shows how tired we were that we
didn't think of it last night."
"Yes, we are thinking the same thing," said Marco. "We have both
remembered what we heard about his shutting himself up alone with his
pictures and making people believe he had gone away."
"He's in his palace now," The Rat announced.
"Do you feel sure of that, too?" asked Marco. "Did you wake up and
feel sure of it the first thing?"
"Yes," answered The Rat. "As sure as if I'd heard him say it himself."
"So did I," said Marco.
"That's what our thoughts brought back to us," said The Rat, "when we
'let go' and sent them off last night." He sat up hugging his knees
and looking straight before him for some time after this, and Marco did
not interrupt his meditations.
The day was a brilliant one, and, though th
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