"Foolish fellow!" said he; "you refuse happiness when it would be so easy for you to retain it. If I proposed to you the death of a man, I could understand, I could even approve of your scruples; but I propose that of a cat—a simple cat! What do you find in that so terrible? What is a cat? Nothing—less than nothing; one doesn’t attach the least value to the lives of cats. Inn-keepers give them to their customers to eat; the most celebrated surgeons massacre them in making certain experiments. Cats are thought so little of, that when a litter of six or seven are born, only one is kept; the rest are tossed into the river."
"Only one is kept; the rest are tossed into the River."
"But Moumouth is large, Moumouth is fully grown," said Faribole in a plaintive tone; "and then, you do not know, I love him."
"You love him! you dare to love him!" cried the steward with inexpressible rage. "Very well! I—I detest him, and I wish his death!"
"But what has he done to you, then?"
"What business is that to you? I desire his death, and that’s enough."
"Mercy for him!" cried Faribole, throwing himself at the feet of hard-hearted Lustucru.
"Get up! Depart!"