"Will you have the six points?"
"I will give them to you, if you like."
"Done! Mark my six points, Gondon; I have my designs on father Cartier. I mean him to contribute to my visit to Paris: the diligences start from his hotel."
At the second round, Cartier got up to twelve.
At thirty points, I had a run and made sixteen more; that made forty-six points, instead of thirty-six. Deducting the six points restored to Cartier, there still remained four I could offer him in return. He refused them with his usual dignity. But Cartier was beside himself when he had lost the first game, and the wilder he was the more obstinate he became: once set going, he would have played away his land, his hotel, his saucepans, to the very chickens that were turning on his spit.
Worthy old Cartier! He is alive yet; although he is eighty-six or eighty-seven, he is still remarkably hale, and lives with his two children. I never go to Villers-Cotterets without calling on him. Last time I saw him, about a year ago, I paid him a compliment on his health.
"My goodness, my dear Cartier," I said to him, "you are like our oak trees, which, if they do not grow very tall, go deep into the soil and gain in roots what they miss in the way of leaves. You will live to the Last Judgment."
"Oh, my boy," he said, "I have been very ill,—did you not know it?"
"No—when?"
"Three and a half years ago."