The captain tells me also that a week or two ago he caught a hedge-hog under a wood-pile. He is engaged in taming him. He calls him Bourbaki. Ah! that's an idea! An intelligent, comical, extraordinary beast that eats everything!
"Yes, indeed!" he exclaims. "In the same day this confounded hedge-hog has eaten beefsteak, mutton stew, salt bacon, gruyère cheese, and preserves. He is astonishing. It is impossible to satisfy him. He is like me; he eats everything!"
Just then the little domestic passes the path, with a wheelbarrow full of stones, old sardine-boxes, and a heap of débris, which he is carrying to the refuse-heap.
"Come here!" calls the captain.
And, as, in answer to his question, I tell him that Monsieur has gone hunting, that Madame has gone to town, and that Joseph has gone on an errand, he takes from the wheelbarrow each of the stones, each bit of the débris, and, one after another, throws them into the garden, crying in a loud voice:
"There, pig! Take that, you wretch!"
The stones fly, the bits of débris fall upon a freshly-worked bed, where Joseph the day before had planted peas.
"Take that! And this, too! And here is another, in the bargain!"
The bed, soon covered with débris, becomes a confused heap. The captain's joy finds expression in a sort of hooting and disorderly gestures. Then, turning up his old grey moustache, he says to me, with a triumphant and rakish air:
"Mademoiselle Célestine, you are a fine girl, for sure! You must come and see me, when Rose is no longer here, eh? Ah! that's an idea!"