“'A cart?'
“'I have ordered one at the cart-maker's.'
“'But customers?'
“I will give you my custom, to begin with, eighteen francs a month; (my dear friend pays for water as dearly as for wine.) Moreover, you have nothing to say, either yes or no. I have dismissed my water-carrier, and you would not let my wife and me die with thirst. This dear Madame Desgranges, just think of it. And so, my boy, in three days—work. And you, Madam James, come here;' and he carried off Juliana.”
“Yes, sir,” continued the wife, “he carried me off, ordered leather straps, made me buy the wheels, harnessed me; we were all astonishment, James and I; but stop, if you can, when Mr. Desgranges drives you. At the end of three days, here we are with the cask, he harnessed and drawing it, I behind, pushing; we were ashamed at crossing the village, as if we were doing something wrong; it seemed as if everybody would laugh at us. But Mr. Desgranges was there in the street.
“'Come on, James,' said he, 'courage.'
“We came along, and in the evening he put into our hands a piece of money, saying,” continued the blind man, with emotion—
“'James, here are twenty sous you have earned to-day.'
“Earned, sir, think of that! earned, it was fifteen months that I had only eaten what had been given to me. It is good to receive from good people, it is true; but the bread that one earns, it is as we say, half corn, half barley; it nourishes better, and then it was done, I was no longer the woman, I was a labourer—a labourer—James earned his living.”
A sort of pride shone from his face.