"Quebec or no, my son is at the Court of France."
"I do not dispute that."
He began assiduously making away with his smoking pea-soup.
"Let us proceed with the letter," said she, for she had indeed shown her generalship in stopping where she did.
"Ah," she went on, pretending to scan the next words for the first time, "Germain needs three thousand livres."
"What!"
"Only three thousand."
"But he kept three thousand out of the beaver-skins; the last draft was for nine hundred; whither is this leading? Have we not to live and carry on the business? and you grow more fanciful every day, as if we were seigneurs and not peasants."
"Certainly we are not peasants—citizens, if you please: anybody will tell you that a merchant is not a peasant. There are citizens who are noble, Lecour. Why should we not make ourselves seigneurs? Who is it but the merchants who are buying up the seigniories and living in the manor-houses to-day? That is my plan."
"Three or four jackasses. Let them be jackasses. I remain François Xavier Lecour, the peasant."