("Deuce take this instructor of the people for befooling them so!" thought Mr. Kordé in his dog-kennel.)
"Did you notice, my brothers, how the rats roamed all about the roads in broad daylight a fortnight ago, how they scuttled away from our landlords' granaries, and set out for another village, and how they stiffened and died in heaps on the way?"
"There you are!" shouted one wiseacre, "the corn in the granary was poisoned!"
("Plague take thee, thou clodpole!" growled the cantor in his hiding-place; "it was the rats that were poisoned, not the corn.")
"And we borrowed of that very corn a fortnight ago to last us till harvest time."
"Then now we'll pay them back with interest!" bellowed one of the rustics, fiercely flourishing a pitchfork.
("I'll swear that's one of my pupils, he is so pugnacious," thought the cantor to himself.)
"And I have already eaten bread made of that very corn, God help me!" cried another; "it is as blue as a toadstool when you break it in two."
("Lout! Tares and other rubbish were mixed up with it, and that made it look blue!")
"And after I had eaten it I felt like to bursting."