“So much the better.”
And she said no more, while Chicot watched her going on with her work. Her crooked, knotted fingers, hard as a lobster's claws, seized the tubers, which were lying in a pail, as if they had been a pair of pincers, and she peeled them rapidly, cutting off long strips of skin with an old knife which she held in the other hand, throwing the potatoes into the water as they were done. Three daring fowls jumped one after the other into her lap, seized a bit of peel and then ran away as fast as their legs would carry them with it in their beak.
Chicot seemed embarrassed, anxious, with something on the tip of his tongue which he could not say. At last he said hurriedly:
“Listen, Mother Magloire—”
“Well, what is it?”
“You are quite sure that you do not want to sell your land?”
“Certainly not; you may make up your mind to that. What I have said I have said, so don't refer to it again.”
“Very well; only I think I know of an arrangement that might suit us both very well.”
“What is it?”
“Just this. You shall sell it to me and keep it all the same. You don't understand? Very well, then follow me in what I am going to say.”