"Come, madame," continued Jacques Bastien, "you see your Latin spitter has departed; are you going to answer me at last?"
"When we are alone, monsieur."
"If it is I who restrain you," said Bridou, walking toward the door, "I am going to march out."
"Come now, Bridou, do you make a jest of everybody? Please stay where you are," cried Jacques.
Then, turning to Marie, he said:
"My companion knows my business as well as I do; now, madame, we are talking of business, for a thousand firs on the edge of my farm is a matter of business, and a big one, too; so Bridou will remain."
"As you please, monsieur; then I will tell you before M. Bridou that I thought it my duty to have your fir-trees cut down, in order to give them to the unfortunate valley people, that they might rebuild their dwellings half destroyed by the overflow."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
FROM Jacques Bastien's point of view, the thing was so outrageous that it was incomprehensible to him, as he artlessly said to the bailiff, "Bridou, do you understand it?"
"Why, bless me, yes," replied Bridou, with an air of assumed good nature, "madame, your wife, has made a present of your fir-trees to the sufferers from the overflow; that is true, is it not, madame?"