Bathilde made no reply, but closed her eyes. Fatigue brings sleep at last, as time always brings forgetfulness. Which proves that in us mortals the mind is always vanquished by the body.
XXX
GOOD FRIENDS
On waking the next morning, Master Hugonnet remembered nothing of his debauch except his dispute with the little clerk, with whom he was now furiously angry. As he arranged his shop, he cried:
"Can anyone imagine such a sly, impertinent knave! To propose to me to make pomade for him out of vile things, and to ask me if it would make hair grow!—He had a very cunning leer as he said that, the horrible dwarf!—Just imagine, my girl, a little man with a nose so turned up that you can see nothing but two holes in his face; and making sport of me for all that, because he had a few crowns in his pocket, won in gambling hells, no doubt. If I find him again, I'll give him another good thrashing! I don't propose to have the Basoche insult bath keepers!"
Ambroisine let her father give vent to his bile. Then she approached him and smiled.
"Father," she said, "you didn't talk like that last night when you came home from the wine shop! Then you adored this little dwarf; you shed tears of regret because someone had beaten him."
"Really! I must have been drunk then?"
"Why, yes! rather."
"I must cure myself of that failing."
"Oh! father, a single failing may be excused in one who has so many good qualities; the world is not perfect."