great pains to excuse himself from sitting down to table. However, I
insisted, as I wished to give him the measure of my character at once. I
treated him as a man I was raising to my own level, not as one to whom I
wished to descend. I forced him to be cleanly in his jokes, but allowed
him to be free and facetious within the limits of decent mirth. He was
a frank, jovial man. I questioned him minutely to discover if he was
not in league with the phantom who was in the habit of leaving his cloak
upon the bed. This, however, seemed far from probable; the man evidently
had such an aversion for the Hamstringers, that, had not a regard for
my relationship held him back, he would have been only too glad to have
given them such a dressing in my presence as they deserved. But I could
not allow him any license on this point; so I requested him to give me
an account of my property, which he did with intelligence, accuracy, and
honesty.

As he withdrew I noticed that the Madeira had had considerable effect on
him; he seemed to have no control over his legs, which kept catching
in the furniture; and yet he had been in sufficient possession of his
faculties to reason correctly. I have always observed that wine acts
much more powerfully on the muscles of peasants than on their nerves;
that they rarely lose their heads, and that, on the contrary, stimulants
produce in them a bliss unknown to us; the pleasure they derive from
drunkenness is quite different from ours and very superior to our
febrile exaltation.

When Marcasse and I found ourselves alone, though we were not drunk, we
realized that the wine had filled us with gaiety and light-heartedness
which we should not have felt at Roche-Mauprat, even without the
adventure of the ghost. Accustomed as we were to speak our thoughts
freely, we confessed mutually, and agreed that we were much better