been married; but Toine was good-humored, while his better-half grew
angry. She was a tall peasant woman, who walked with long steps like a
stork, and had a head resembling that of an angry screech-owl. She spent
her time rearing chickens in a little poultry-yard behind the inn, and
she was noted for her success in fattening them for the table.

Whenever the gentry of Fecamp gave a dinner they always had at least one
of Madame Toine's chickens to be in the fashion.

But she was born ill-tempered, and she went through life in a mood of
perpetual discontent. Annoyed at everyone, she seemed to be particularly
annoyed at her husband. She disliked his gaiety, his reputation, his rude
health, his embonpoint. She treated him as a good-for-nothing creature
because he earned his money without working, and as a glutton because he
ate and drank as much as ten ordinary men; and not a day went by without
her declaring spitefully:

"You'd be better in the stye along with the pigs! You're so fat it makes
me sick to look at you!"

And she would shout in his face:

"Wait! Wait a bit! We'll see! You'll burst one of these fine days like a
sack of corn-you old bloat, you!"

Toine would laugh heartily, patting his corpulent person, and replying:

"Well, well, old hen, why don't you fatten up your chickens like that?
just try!"