"Silence," said the farmer, clutching the speaker's arm, "let us not speak of that matter."
"Why not if I speak in order that you may be revenged?"
"Then that is another thing—speak of it," said the other, turning pale but smiling at the same time.
Pitou thought no more of eating or drinking, but stared at their new acquaintance as at a wizard.
"But what do you understand by revenge?" went on he with a smile: "tell me. In a paltry manner, by killing one individual, as you tried to do?"
Billet blanched like a corpse: Pitou shuddered all over.
"Or by pursuing a whole class?"
"By hunting down a whole caste," said Billet, "for of such are the crimes of all his like. When I mourned before my friend Dr. Gilbert, he said: 'Poor Billet, what has befallen you has already happened to a hundred thousand fathers; what would the young noblemen have in the way of pastime if they did not steal away the poor man's daughter, and the old ones steal away the King's money?'"
"Oh, Gilbert said that, did he?"