Irritated, no doubt, by the meekness of her victim, the housewife resumed, addressing her husband vehemently:
"To whom do I speak, if you please?"
The tailor and the apprentice continued mute.
The exasperated woman administered a vigorous slap to her husband, saying:
"It appears to me that when I speak to a fool, it is thou whom I address, and thou would'st do well to reply—ill-bred as thou art!"
"By St. Genevieve!" cried the tailor, putting his hand to his cheek, and turning to his apprentice,—"how's that, Kraft?"
The apprentice answered only by a violent stroke of his iron goose, applied to the seams of a coat; but this blow had such an expression of temper, that Dame Landry, with a dexterous hand, inflicted on the phlegmatic German the same correction she had applied to Landry, saying to him:
"I'll teach you to censure my conduct, you sluggard!"
"How do you find that, Master Landry?" said the apprentice, in his turn, looking towards his master.
The latter, hoping to allay his wife's irritation, said, very calmly: