"Happy?" rejoined the carpenter; "there's no happier man than I on the face of the earth!"
"That's easy to see," said Janille. "See how he has cheered up since he ceased to be tracked every morning like an old rabbit! And then he shaves every Sunday now, and he has new clothes that look very well on him."
"And who was it who spun the wool for this pretty drugget?" said Jean. "Why, ma mie Janille and the good Lord's child! And who gave the wool? my master's sheep. And who paid the cost? it is paid in friendship here. You don't have coats like this, bourgeois. I wouldn't change my fustian jacket for your black broadcloth swallow-tail."
"I would be satisfied with the spinstress," observed Galuchet, glancing at Gilberte.
"You?" said Jean, good-humoredly bringing his hand down on Galuchet's shoulder with force enough to crush an ox; "you have spinstresses like this one? Why, ma mie Janille is too young for you, my boy; and as for the other, I would kill her if she should spin a bit of wool as long as your nose for you!"
Galuchet was wounded by this allusion to his flat nose, and retorted, rubbing his shoulder:
"Look you, peasant, your manners are too touching; joke with your equals, I have nothing to say to you."
"What's this gentleman's name?" Jean asked Monsieur Antoine. "I can't remember his devil of a name."
"Come, come, Jean, you go a little too fast, old fellow," replied Monsieur Antoine. "Don't undertake to tease Monsieur Galuchet; he's a very worthy young man, and, furthermore, he is my guest."
"Well said, master! Let us make peace, Monsieur Maljuché. Will you have a pinch of snuff?"