“Oh! I don’t say what he examines; but if by the trunk you mean the torso, it may be that.”
“Oh! that is much more amusing! And he never gets a year out of the way?”
“Not a week!”
“Pardieu! that is likely to lead to some very amusing revelations! What in the devil did Doctor Antoine mean by telling us that it was a matter of trees?”
“He must have heard wrong.”
“I must go at once to the ladies and correct his mistake.”
Monsieur Jarnouillard instantly sought his wife, who was talking with Mesdames Remplumé and Droguet, and said to them:
“It isn’t trees that Monsieur de Belleville tells the age of without ever making a mistake, just by examining the trunk; it’s women.—So beware, mesdames! I felt I ought to warn you; he is never a week wrong!”
“What is Monsieur Jarnouillard talking about?” exclaimed Madame Droguet; “Monsieur de Belleville tells our age by examining what?”
“He says the trunk.”