you," said Dard; "they impose on Jacintha; and so she imposes on me."
Then observing he had at last gained his employer's ear, he became
prodigiously loquacious, as such people generally are when once they get
upon their own griefs.

"These Beaurepaire aristocrats," said he, with his hard peasant
good-sense, "are neither the one thing nor the other; they cannot keep
up nobility, they have not the means; they will not come down off their
perch, they have not the sense. No, for as small as they are, they must
look and talk as big as ever. They can only afford one servant, and
I don't believe they pay her; but they must be attended on just as
obsequious as when they had a dozen. And this is fatal to all us little
people that have the misfortune to be connected with them."

"Why, how are you connected with them?"

"By the tie of affection."

"I thought you hated them."

"Of course I do; but I have the ill-luck to love Jacintha, and she loves
these aristocrats, and makes me do little odd jobs for them." And at
this Dard's eyes suddenly glared with horror.

"Well, what of that?" asked Riviere.

"What of it, citizen, what? you do not know the fatal meaning of those
accursed words?"

"Why, I never heard of a man's back being broken by little odd jobs."