The bar loosened at the end, and he drew it slowly towards him.

At that instant, however, just as he was disengaging it, a round head appeared between him and the moonlight, a head with a great shock of tangled hair and a woollen cap upon the top of it.
So astonished was Amos Green at the sudden apparition that he let go his grip upon the bar, which, falling outwards, toppled over the edge of the window-sill.
"You great fool!" shrieked a voice from below, "are your fingers ever to be thumbs, then, that you should fumble your tools so?
A thousand thunders of heaven! You have broken my shoulder." "What is it, then ?" cried the other.

"My faith, Pierre, if your fingers went as fast as your tongue, you would be the first joiner in France." "What is it, you ape! You have dropped your tool upon me." "I! I have dropped nothing." "Idiot! Would you have me believe that iron falls from the sky?
I say that you have struck me, you foolish, clumsy-fingered lout." "I have not struck you yet," cried the other, "but, by the Virgin, if I have more of this I will come down the ladder to you!" "Silence, you good-for-naughts!" said a third voice sternly.

"If the work be not done by daybreak, there will be a heavy reckoning for somebody." And again the steady hammering and sawing went forward.

The head still passed and repassed, its owner walking apparently upon some platform which they had constructed beneath their window, but never giving a glance or a thought to the black square opening beside him.