He resolved to dissipate this sadness.
"I say, Father Billet," he resumed, after preparing his stock of words as a sharpshooter makes a provision of cartridges, "who the devil could have guessed, in a year and two days, that since Miss Catherine received me on the farm, so many events should have taken place."
"Nobody," rejoined Billet whose terrible glance at the mention of Catherine had not been remarked.
"The idea of the pair of us taking the Bastile," continued he, like the sharpshooter having reloaded his gun.
"Nobody," replied the farmer mechanically.
"Plague on it, he has made up his mind not to talk," thought the younger man. "Who would think that I should become a captain and you a Federalist, and we both be taking supper under an arbor in the very spot where the old prison stood?"
"Nobody," said Billet for the third time, with a more sombre look than before.
The younger man saw that there was no inducing the other to speak but he found comfort in the thought that this ought not to alienate his right. So he continued, leaving Billet the right to speak if he chose.
"I suppose, like the Bastile, all whom we knew, have become dust, as the Scriptures foretold. To think that we stormed the Bastile, on your saying so, as if it were a chicken-house, and that here we sit where it used to be, drinking merrily! oh, the racket we kicked up that day. Talking of racket," he interrupted himself, "what is this rumpus all about?"