And the worthy Bernard was so pale with emotion when he reentered his lodge, so pale and spent, that on seeing him enter, his wife and daughter Amanda exclaimed as with one voice:
"Goodness! what is it? What has happened to you now?"
"Nothing," responded he, with altered voice, "absolutely nothing."
"You are deceiving me," insisted Madame Bernard, "you are concealing something from me; do not spare me; speak, I am strong—what did the new proprietor tell you? Does he think of turning us off?"
"If it were only that! But just think, he told me with his own lips, he told me to—ah! you will never believe me—"
"Oh, yes; only do go on."
"You will have it, then!—Well, then, he told me, he ordered me to notify all the tenants that—he lowered their rents one-third! Did you hear what I said?—lowered the rents of the tenants—"
But neither Madame nor Mademoiselle Bernard heard him out—they were twisting and doubling with convulsive laughter.
"Lower!" repeated they; "ah! what a good joke, what a droll man! Lower the tenants' rents."
But Bernard, losing his temper and insisting that he must be taken seriously in his own lodge, his wife lost her temper too, and a quarrel followed! Madame Bernard declaring that Monsieur Bernard had, beyond a doubt, taken his fantastic order from the bottom of a litre of wine in the restaurant at the corner.