himself an iron body and a fine soul? Well, isn't he as bad off as I
am? His little granddaughter, Pechina, is at service with Madame
Michaud, whereas my little Mouche is as free as air. So that poor good
man gets rewarded for his virtues in exactly the same way that I get
punished for my vices. He don't know what a glass of good wine is,
he's as sober as an apostle, he buries the dead, and I--I play for the
living to dance. He is always in a peck o' troubles, while I slip
along in a devil-may-care way. We have come along about even in life;
we've got the same snow on our heads, the same funds in our pockets,
and I supply him with rope to ring his bell. He's a republican and I'm
not even a publican,--that's all the difference as far as I can see. A
peasant may do good or do evil (according to your ideas) and he'll go
out of the world just as he came into it, in rags; while you wear the
fine clothes."

No one interrupted Pere Fourchon, who seemed to owe his eloquence to
his potations. At first Sibilet tried to cut him short, but desisted
at a sign from Blondet. The abbe, the general, and the countess, all
understood from the expression of the writer's eye that he wanted to
study the question of pauperism from life, and perhaps take his
revenge on Pere Fourchon.

"What sort of education are you giving Mouche?" asked Blondet. "Do you
expect to make him any better than your daughters?"

"Does he ever speak to him of God?" said the priest.

"Oh, no, no! Monsieur le cure, I don't tell him to fear God, but men.
God is good; he has promised us poor folks, so you say, the kingdom of
heaven, because the rich people keep the earth to themselves. I tell