“You’re a fool! I tell you that I have something to say to your master, that I want to see him. I am not a person to be kept waiting. Come, off you go!”
Old Mère Lucas was hesitating when Ami suddenly appeared in the courtyard and planted himself, growling, in front of Thélénie, as if to bar her passage.
“That dog again, that infernal dog! It’s he that I came to complain about. Call him away, old woman; you see that he prevents me from passing.”
“Come, good Loulou, come, my boy; come with me and don’t stand in front of madame like that.”
But Ami paid no heed to what Mère Lucas said. He continued to block the amazon’s path, and began to bark at her.
“Look you, servant, I advise you to call your dog away; if he doesn’t get out of the way I’ll curry him with my crop, after a fashion he won’t like!”
“Don’t do that, madame, or you’ll be sorry for it; the dog isn’t ugly, but if anybody besides his master should strike him—and his master never strikes him—why, then he’d bite you, he’d throw himself on you.”
“But you see that he won’t let me pass; that he stands in front of me all the time.”
The master’s arrival put an end to this scene.
Paul had come from the house, surprised to hear his dog bark so persistently.