"What? that he was Louise's lover, and the father of her child."
"Sly dog! Do you think so?"
"Why—why—why—"
"Pooh! pooh!"
"That's not the case."
"How do you know, Master Jabulot?"
"Because it is not a fortnight ago that Germain told me, in confidence, that he was over head and ears in love with a little needle-woman, a very correct lass, whom he had known in the house where he lived; and, when he talked of her, the tears came in his eyes."
"Why, Jabulot, you are getting quite poetical."
"He says Faublas is his hero, and he is not 'wide awake' enough to know that a man may be in love with one woman and a lover of another at the same time; for, as the tender Fénélon says, in his Instructions to the Duke of Burgundy:
'A spicy blade, of the right cock-feather,
May love a blonde and brunette together.'"