"I! I!" they all shouted at once, and he began on Rosa the Jade, who uncovered a shapeless, round thing without any ankle, a regular "sausage of a leg," as Raphaele used to say.
The commercial traveler complimented Fernande, and grew quite enthusiastic over her powerful columns.
The thin tibias of the handsome Jewess met less success, and Louise Cocote, by way of a joke, put her petticoats over his head, so that Madame was obliged to interfere to check such unseemly behavior.
Lastly, Madame herself put out her leg, a handsome, muscular, Norman leg, and in his surprise and pleasure, the commercial traveler gallantly took off his hat to salute that master calf, like a true French cavalier.
The two peasants, who were speechless from surprise, looked aside, out of the corners of their eyes, and they looked so exactly like fowls that the man with the light whiskers, when he sat up, said co—co—ri—co, under their very noses, and that gave rise to another storm of amusement.
The old people got out at Motteville, with their basket, their ducks, and their umbrella, and they heard the woman say to her husband, as they went away:
"They are bad women, who are off to that cursed place Paris."
The funny commercial traveler himself got out at Rouen, after behaving so coarsely, that Madame was obliged sharply to put him into his right place, and she added, as a moral: "This will teach us not to talk to the first comer."
At Oissel they changed trains, and at a little station further on, Monsieur Joseph Rivet was waiting for them with a large cart and a number of chairs in it, which was drawn by a white horse.
The carpenter politely kissed all the ladies, and then helped them into his conveyance.