"My boy, these gentlemen think the produce of your farm very wonderful."
"The gentlemen are very kind, dear uncle," replied Mathurin, "but it is the cattle of one who chooses and loves the work! I do not fear the English or the Ardennois, upon the flavour of my beef, my veal, or my mutton from the salt meadows which make my reputation and my fortune. Because, you see, gentlemen, the prime object of agriculture is to make food, as we say. The cattle produce the manure, the manure the pasture, the pasture the fertility of the earth, and the fertility of the earth gives provision and pasturage to the cattle. All is bound together: the more the cattle is finely fattened, the better it is for the eater, according to our proverb; the better it sells, the better is the manure and consequently better is the culture. So with the poultry of Mathurin; without doubt, it is a great expense and requires many persons on the farm, for perhaps, gentlemen, you will not believe that to fatten one of these capons and one of these pullets as you see them here, we must open the beak and, fifteen or twenty times a day, put down the throat little balls of barley flour and milk, and that, too, for three months! But we get a famous product, because each capon brings us more than a weak mutton or veal. But immense care is necessary. So, with the advice of this dear uncle, whose advice is always good, we show every year at Christmas what we do on the farm. In the evening, upon the return of the cattle, the first two beeves which enter the stable, the finest or the poorest, no matter, chance decides it, are set aside; it is the same with the first six calves; afterward, when, the cages of the fowls are opened, the first dozen capons, the first dozen pullets, and the first dozen cocks which come out are set aside."
"What good is that?" asked the abbé. "What is done with these animals thus appointed by fate?"
"We make a lot of them and they are sold for the profit of the people on the farm. This profit is in addition to their fixed wages. You understand, gentlemen, that all my people are thus interested in the cattle and the poultry, which receive the best possible care, inasmuch as chance alone decides the lot of encouragement, as we call it. What is the result, gentlemen? It is that cattle and poultry become almost as much the property of my people as mine, because the finer the lot, the dearer it sells, and the larger the profit. Eh, gentlemen, would you believe that, thanks to the zeal, the care and diligence which my farm people give to the hope of this profit, I gain more than I give, because our interest is common, so that in improving the condition of these poor people, I advance my own."
"The moral of all this, my lord canon, is," said the doctor, smiling, "that it is necessary to eat as many fine sirloins as possible, as many tender cutlets from the salt meadows, and give oneself with equal devotion to the unlimited consumption of pullets, capons, and India cocks, so as to encourage this industry."
"I will try, doctor," said the canon, gravely, "to attain to the height of my duties."
"And they are more numerous than you think, Dom Diégo, because it depends upon you too to see that poor people are better clothed and better shod, and to this you can make especial contribution, by eating plenty of veal stewed à la Samaritan, plenty of beefsteak with anchovy sauce, and plenty of lambs' tongues à la d'Uxelle."
"Come now, doctor," said the canon, "you are joking!"
"You are rather slow in discovering that, Dom Diégo," said the abbé.
"I am speaking seriously," replied the doctor, "and I am going to prove it to you, Dom Diégo. What are shoes made of?"