"As you like," said the butcher, throwing the piece back into the pan. "Only, you know, I am going to send you your bill to-day. If it is not paid by to-morrow, then the process-server!"
"Give it to me," said the old woman, then, with resignation.
When she had gone, the butcher explained to me:
"Nevertheless, if we did not have the poor to buy the inferior parts, we really should not make enough out of an animal. But these wretches are getting to be very exacting nowadays."
And, cutting off two long slices of good red meat, he threw them to the dogs.
The dogs of the rich,—indeed! they are not poor.
At the Priory events succeed one another. From the tragic they pass to the comical, for one cannot always shudder. Tired of the captain's mischief-making, and acting on Madame's advice, Monsieur has at last brought suit before a justice of the peace. He claims damages and interest for the breaking of his bell-glasses and his frames, and for the devastation of the garden. It seems that the meeting of the two enemies in the office of the justice was really something epic. They blackguarded one another like rag-pickers. Of course, the captain denies, with many oaths, that he has ever thrown stones or anything else into Lanlaire's garden; it is Lanlaire who throws stones into his.
"Have you witnesses? Where are your witnesses? Dare to produce witnesses," screams the captain.
"Witnesses?" rejoins Monsieur; "there are the stones, and all the dirty things with which you have been continually covering my land. There are the old hats, and the old slippers, that I pick up every day, and that everybody recognizes as having belonged to you."