"'My dear sir,' the father of the family would reply, 'that may be all very well for rich people, but we are not the sort of folk to give our boys so much learning. They will have quite enough for working on the land.'
"'Look here,' M. Donnat would say, 'there is nothing better than a good education. Don't worry about payment. Give me every year so many measures of corn, so many casks of wine, so many drums of oil, and arrange matters in that way.'
"So the worthy farmer would send his children to Saint-Michel de Frigolet.
"Then I suppose M. Donnat would go to a tradesman and begin thus:
"'What a fine boy you have there! He looks sharp enough, too. I suppose you are not going to turn him into a counter-jumper.'
"'Oh, sir, if we only could, we should be glad to give him a little education, but schools are dear, and when there isn't much money——!'
"'If it's a question of a school,' M. Donnat would reply, 'send him to mine at Saint-Michel de Frigolet. We will teach him Latin and make a man of him. As for payment, let it come out of the shop. You will have an extra customer in me, and a very good customer too.'
"And then and there the shopkeeper would promise him his son.
"Another time he would pass a carpenter's house, and supposing he saw a child playing in the gutter who looked pale, he would say to his mother: 'What's the matter with this pretty little fellow? He looks very white. Is he ill, or has he been eating cinders?'
"'Oh, no,' she would reply, 'it is always playing about that makes him look like that. Play is meat and drink to him, sir.'