“Why, monsieur—I haven’t eaten as much as your thumb to-day, saving your presence.”
“No, but you have drunk enough to make up for it.”
“I’ve drunk very moderate; besides, wine never upsets me, I’m so used to it.”
“So, Pichet, your son won’t be in condition to act to-night?”
“You had better not rely on him; the little rascal has the fever and it don’t leave him a minute; it’s constantly going and coming.”
“Well, we are in a fix; and it’s too late now to teach anybody else Codinde’s part!”
“Monsieur, if you say so, I can take my boy’s part well enough; I know it, because I’ve been saying it to him all day.”
“You, Pichet,—you take the child’s part?”
“Why,” said Dufournelle, “in a play that is a parody of the melodramas, it seems to me that it will be even funnier to see the part played by a tall fellow like him.”
“Is that your opinion? Then I have no objection.—Can we rely on you, Pichet?”