“Yes!” replied the other, shrugging his shoulders.
“And what do you think of it all?” asked M. de Dampierre.
“I think that the class to which he belongs are losing their heads altogether.”
I planed away vigorously, and affected not to hear. By-and-bye they strolled off to the forest, laughing, whilst I got ready to go to M. Mathieu, for my first lesson in engineering.
CHAPTER VI.
THE NATION AND THE BASTILLE.—VERDICT FOR THE FORMER.
At the end of the fifteenth day the Abbé Fortin had his furniture retouched, and when three months had expired I had finished the carpentry work for M. Drouet.
The work was estimated at five hundred francs, the materials alone costing a hundred and twenty; so that I received three hundred and eighty, with the compliments of my two masters on the excellency of my workmanship.
Whilst I was still engaged on the completion of the order, M. Drouet advanced me five hundred francs, to enable me to buy the wood, and at the same time, to take my lessons in the use of implements of warfare, and purchase useful books.