“Monsieur, you have been good to me.” Charley laid a hand on the sick man’s arm.
“I don’t see that. But if you won’t talk, I’ll believe you think so.”
The Notary shook his head. “I’ve not been talking for an hour, I’ve no fever, and I want to say some things. When I’ve said them, I’ll feel better—voila! I want to make the amende honorable. I once thought you were this and that—I won’t say what I thought you. I said you interfered—giving advice to people, as you did to Filion Lacasse, and taking the bread out of my mouth. I said that!”
He paused, raised himself on his elbow, smoothed back his grizzled hair behind his ears, looked at himself in the mirror opposite with satisfaction, and added oracularly: “But how prone is the mind of man to judge amiss! You have put bread into my mouth—no, no, Monsieur, you shall hear me! As well as doing your own work, you have done my business since my accident as well as a lawyer could do it; and you’ve given every penny to my wife.”
“As for the work I’ve done,” answered Charley, “it was nothing—you notaries have easy times. You may take your turn with my shears and needle one day.”
With a dash of patronage true to his nature, “You are wonderful for a tailor,” the Notary rejoined. Charley laughed—seldom, if ever, had he laughed since coming to Chaudiere. It was, however, a curious fact that he took a real pleasure in the work he did with his hands. In making clothes for habitant farmers, and their sons and their sons’ sons, and jackets for their wives and daughters, he had had the keenest pleasure of his life.
He had taken his earnings with pride, if not with exultation. He knew the Notary did not mean that he was wonderful as a tailor, but he answered to the suggestion.
“You liked that last coat I made for you, then,” he said drily; “I believe you wore it when you were shot. It was the thing for your figure, man.”
The Notary looked in the large mirror opposite with sad content. “Ah, it was a good figure, the first time I went to that hut at Four Mountains!”
“We can’t always be young. You have a waist yet, and your chest-barrel gives form to a waistcoat. Tut, tut! Think of the twins in the way of vainglory and hypocrisy.”