"But I can't, and I won't."
"If you're short of change, I'll try to get you a loan from the treasury of the commune."
"I tell you I'd rather rob the saints. I'd rather lay my hand on this block and chop it off than touch a pittance out of the public chest."
"You're far gone: you want to make a ten-strike, and there are only nine pins standing. Florian, Florian, consider, there's not only a right and a left, but there's a straight road too. If you don't ask too much you shall have any money to travel with,--not as a gift, but as a loan. 'Only half your money's lost on a young loafer,' they always say: don't take it amiss, though."
Florian answered, gnashing his teeth, "I didn't ask your money nor your advice, and no one has a right to call me names."
"Well, I've done: I've nothing more to say. But, if you should think better of it, come to see me again to-morrow. Good-bye."
He left Florian harrowed in his inmost soul. Whistling a lively air, he sauntered down the village, looking every one in the face, as if to ask them, with defiance, whether they did not respect him.
Crescence never knew that this interview had taken place; and Florian strove to banish it from his own recollection.