“Less mine than yours,” said my father sharply. “A ragamuffin and a humbug, who hops about——”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “that’s true, really true, that he hops. He hops, hops, hops!”
And she left the shop, shaking with laughter.
My father turned round to the priest, who was picking a bone:
“It is as I had the honour to say to your reverence! For each reading and writing lesson that Capuchin friar gives to my child, I pay him with a goblet of wine and a fine piece of meat, hare, rabbit, goose, or a tender poulet or a capon. He is a drunkard and evil liver!”
“Don’t doubt about that,” said the priest.
“But if ever he dares to come over my threshold again, I’ll drive him out with a broomstick.”
“And you’ll do well by it,” said the priest; “that Capuchin is an ass, and he taught your son rather to bray than to talk. You’ll act wisely by throwing into the fire that ‘Life of St Catherine,’ that prayer for the cure of chilblains and that history of the bugbear, with which that monk poisoned your son’s mind. For the same price you paid for Friar Ange’s lessons, I’ll give him my own; I’ll teach him Latin and Greek, and French also, that language which Voiture and Balzac have brought to perfection. And in such way, by a luck doubly singular and favourable, this Jacquot Tournebroche will become learned and I shall eat every day.”
“Agreed!” said my father. “Barbara, bring two goblets. No business is concluded without the contracting parties having a drink together as a token of agreement. We will drink here. I’ll never in my life put my legs into the Little Bacchus again, so repugnant have that cutler and that monk become to me.”
The priest rose and, putting his hands on the back of his chair, said in a slow and serious manner: