"What cheese?" asked the landlady.

"Oh, nothing! nothing!" Homais continued. "I merely wished to convey
to you, Madame Lefrancois, that I usually live at home like a recluse.
To-day, however, considering the circumstances, it is necessary--"

"Oh, you're going down there!" she said contemptuously.

"Yes, I am going," replied the druggist, astonished. "Am I not a member
of the consulting commission?"

Mere Lefrancois looked at him for a few moments, and ended by saying
with a smile--

"That's another pair of shoes! But what does agriculture matter to you?
Do you understand anything about it?"

"Certainly I understand it, since I am a druggist--that is to say,
a chemist. And the object of chemistry, Madame Lefrancois, being the
knowledge of the reciprocal and molecular action of all natural bodies,
it follows that agriculture is comprised within its domain. And, in
fact, the composition of the manure, the fermentation of liquids, the
analyses of gases, and the influence of miasmata, what, I ask you, is
all this, if it isn't chemistry, pure and simple?"

The landlady did not answer. Homais went on--

"Do you think that to be an agriculturist it is necessary to have tilled
the earth or fattened fowls oneself? It is necessary rather to know the
composition of the substances in question--the geological strata, the