"Locked in with my daughter!" cried the farmer; "morgué! we'll see about this!"
And he ran to his daughter's chamber without listening to what the old woman said. He opened the door with a vigorous kick, and it is to be presumed that he was not pleased with the great healer's method of healing his daughter; for he seized a broom, and opened the conversation by striking him with it again and again.
Dubourg had no time to parley; with a muttered oath, he fled; the girl wept, the father swore, and the whole household was up in arms.
Our charlatan, seeing that the farm hands were arming themselves with clubs in imitation of their master, thought of nothing but his personal safety; he fled from the farm, abandoning his ass, his syringes, and all his remedies; all of which was very fortunate for the invalids along the route he still had to traverse.
XXI
LOVE IS ALWAYS THE STRONGEST
Dubourg reached Paris at last. He had taken only a few days more than a month to travel nearly a hundred and eighty leagues; which is not an inordinately long time, when one makes marvellous cures all along the road. As he fled from the farm, where his last miracle had been so ill rewarded, he was careful to throw away his blonde wig with the long pigtail, which tempted all the little ragamuffins to run after him. He arrived in the capital rather travel-stained and muddy and unkempt; but nevertheless he arrived, and went at once to his last lodgings, which no longer belonged to him, but where he had left a pair of trousers in the custody of his concierge, an excellent woman, who was rather partial to ne'er-do-wells, because they are, as a general rule, more open-handed than virtuous and orderly young men.
Together with his trousers, the concierge handed him a bulky sealed package, which Dubourg took with a trembling hand, supposing it to be a bundle of summonses or judgments; of executions and levies he had no fear.
He broke the seal and read a letter which he found inside; an expression of delirious joy stole over his features, but soon he began to make wry faces as if he were trying to weep; however, as he could not manage it, he abandoned the attempt.
"My dear Madame Benoît," he said to the concierge, "you must often have heard me speak of my venerable aunt in Bretagne, who used to send me money sometimes?"
"Yes, monsieur."