"'I go nowhere, madame, and I do not desire to make any new acquaintances!'
"With that, he just touched his hand to his cap, which he did not even raise from his head, and strode away, followed by his huge dog.
"Ah! if you could have seen Madame Droguet when she got home! She was perfectly furious! She ran about to all her acquaintances, saying: 'I know the owner of the Tower now! he's a boor, a clown, a man of no breeding whatever! He didn't even raise his cap to me! He must be a mere nobody who has made money, no one knows how. I'll wager that he doesn't know how to read or write, and if he avoids society, it's because he realizes that he would be out of place therein, and wouldn't know how to behave himself! Thanks! I shan't undertake his education; it would be too hard work to grub up that fellow.'
"For some time people talked of nothing but Madame Droguet's interview with the newcomer, and the whole district knew that that gentleman needed a thorough grubbing up; Madame Droguet's expression was a great success; she often makes some very remarkable ones. After all, when a person talks a great deal and says whatever comes into his head, it isn't surprising that in the vast output of words there should be a few clever ones—they may occasionally fall from the dullest person's lips.
"Several months passed and the proprietor of the Tower continued to follow the same line of conduct.
"One morning, Monsieur Luminot, formerly a wholesale dealer in wines, who is very well-to-do, and has a fine house and a good deal of land in this region—Monsieur Luminot, I say, took it into his head to make this Monsieur Paul's acquaintance.
"I must tell you, mesdames, that Monsieur Luminot is a lively old fellow, a bon vivant and wag, who often gives dinners and entertains handsomely. He is highly esteemed all about here.
"He said to himself: 'The master of the Tower probably divined that Madame Droguet had hidden in a clump of bushes in order to pop out in front of him, and he didn't like it. I can understand that; men don't like to have traps laid for them, or to be watched for and spied upon. I'll go about it in an entirely different way; I'll go straight to this gentleman and tell him that I have come as a neighbor, to call on him, and I will invite him to dinner. He will say at all events: "Here's a man who acts honestly, and doesn't lie in wait for me in the bushes."—I feel sure that he will welcome me more courteously than he did Madame Droguet.'
"And one fine day, after his breakfast, Monsieur Luminot bent his steps toward the Tower. He rang the bell at the main gate which was always kept locked, saying to himself that if Mère Lucas should answer the bell, he would ask her to take him to her master. But it was not the old peasant who opened the gate, it was the master of the house himself; he stared at Monsieur Luminot with an air of amazement, and said in his hoarse voice, not even allowing him to enter his premises:
"'What do you want, monsieur?'