"Pish!" said a voice behind them. It was the Seigneur's groom, with a straw in his mouth. He had a gloomy mind.
"There isn't a house but has two or three boarders. I've got three," said Filion Lacasse. "They come tomorrow."
"We'll have ten at the Manor. But no good will come of it," said the groom.
"No good! Look at the infidel tailor!" said Madame Dauphin. "He translated all the writing. He drew all the dresses, and made a hundred pictures—there they are at the Cure's house."
"He should have played Judas," said the groom malevolently. "That'd be right for him."
"Perhaps you don't like the Passion Play," said Madame Dauphin disdainfully.
"We ain't through with it yet," said the death's-head groom.
"It is a pious and holy mission," said Madame Dauphin. "Even that Jo Portugais worked night and day till he went away to Montreal, and he always goes to Mass now. He's to take Pontius Pilate when he comes back. Then look at Virginie Morrissette, that put her brother's eyes out quarrelling—she's to play Mary Magdalene."
"I could fit the parts better," said the groom.
"Of course. You'd have played St. John," said the saddler—"or, maybe,
Christus himself!"