But Beauchene protested: "No, you don't! The man who already has four
children when he is only twenty-seven can't claim to be reasonable. And
twins too--your Blaise and your Denis to begin with! And then your boy
Ambroise and your little girl Rose. Without counting the other little
girl that you lost at her birth. Including her, you would now have had
five youngsters, you wretched fellow! No, no, I'm the one who behaves
reasonably--I, who have but one child, and, like a prudent, sensible man,
desire no others!"

He often made such jesting remarks as these, through which filtered his
genuine indignation; for he deemed the young couple to be over-careless
of their interests, and declared that the prolificness of his cousin
Marianne was quite scandalous.

Accustomed as Mathieu was to these attacks, which left him perfectly
serene, he went on laughing, without even giving a reply, when a workman
abruptly entered the room--one who was currently called "old Moineaud,"
though he was scarcely three-and-forty years of age. Short and thick-set,
he had a bullet head, a bull's neck, and face and hands scarred and
dented by more than a quarter of a century of toil. By calling he was a
fitter, and he had come to submit a difficulty which had just arisen in
the piecing together of a reaping machine. But, his employer, who was
still angrily thinking of over-numerous families, did not give him time
to explain his purpose.

"And you, old Moineaud, how many children have you?" he inquired.

"Seven, Monsieur Beauchene," the workman replied, somewhat taken aback.
"I've lost three."