By whom was the sixteenth? She did not say. Probably it was the first. Perhaps everyone knew about it, for no one was surprised. Even Caniveau remained unmoved.
But Belhomme began to groan.
“Oh, ow … ow … ow … it fair tears me to bits. Hell!”
The coach drew up outside the Café Polyte. The priest said:
“If we were to drop a little water in your ear, it might bring the thing out with it. Would you like to try it?”
“For sure. I’m willing.”
Everyone got down to assist at the operation.
The priest called for a basin, a napkin, and a glass of water; and he ordered the schoolmaster to hold the patient’s head well over to one side, and then, as soon as the liquid should have penetrated into the passage, to swing it rapidly over the other way.
But Caniveau, who had straightway applied himself to Belhomme’s ear to see whether he could not discover the beast with his naked eye, cried out:
“God bless my soul, what a sticky mess! You’ll have to get that out, my boy. No rabbit could get out through that conglomeration of stuff. He’d stick fast with all four feet.”
The priest examined the passage in his turn and realised that it was too narrow and too stuffed with wax to attempt the expulsion of the beast. It was the schoolmaster who cleared the path with a match and a bit of rag. Then, amid general anxiety, the priest poured down this scoured channel half a glass of water which ran over Belhomme’s face and hair and down his neck. Then the schoolmaster turned the head sharply back over the basin, as if he were trying to unscrew it. A few drops fell out into the white vessel. All the travellers flung themselves upon it. No beast had emerged.
However, Belhomme announcing: “I can’t feel anything,” the priest, triumphant, cried:
“It is certainly drowned!”
Everyone was pleased. They all got back into the coach.
But hardly had they got under way again when Belhomme burst out with the most terrible cries. The beast had wakened up and had become quite frantic. He even swore that it had now got into the head, that it was devouring his brain for him. He accompanied his howls with such contortions that Poiret’s wife, believing him possessed of the devil, began to cry and make the sign of the cross. Then, the pain abating a little, the afflicted man related that it was now careering round his ear. He described with his finger the movements of the beast, seeming to see it, and follow it with a watchful eye.
“Look at it now, there it goes up again! … ow … ow … ow … oh, hell!”
Caniveau lost patience.
“It’s the water has sent it crazy, that beast of yours. Likely it’s more used to wine.”
His listeners burst out laughing. He added:
“As soon as you and me reach the Café Bourboux, give it a small brandy and I’ll warrant it’ll worry you no more.”
But Belhomme could no longer endure his misery. He began to cry out as if his very inside was being torn out. The priest was obliged to support his head for him. His companions begged Césaire Horlaville to stop at the first house on the way.
It turned out to be a farm, lying near the roadside. Belhomme was carried to it; then they stretched him out on the kitchen table to begin the operation again. Caniveau persisted in advising Memboux brandy with the water, in order to make the beast either tipsy or drowsy, or perhaps kill it outright. But the priest preferred vinegar.
This time they poured in the liquid drop by drop, so that it would reach the farthest corner; then they left it for some minutes in the inhabited organ.
Another basin having been brought, Belhomme was turned bodily over by that lusty pair, the priest and Caniveau, while the schoolmaster banged with his finger on the healthy ear, the better to empty out the other.
Césaire Horlaville himself, whip in hand, had come in to watch.
All at once they saw in the bottom of the basin a small brown speck, no bigger than an onion seed. It was moving, however. It was a flea! Cries of surprise burst forth, then shouts of laughter. A flea! Oh, this was rich, this was very rich! Caniveau slapped his thigh, Césaire Horlaville cracked his whip, the priest burst into guffaws like the braying of an ass, the schoolmaster gave vent to a laugh like a sneeze, and the two women uttered little cries of merriment like nothing but the clucking of hens.
Belhomme was sitting on the table, and, resting the basin on his knees, he contemplated with grave intentness, and a gleam of angry joy in his eye, the vanquished beastie which turned and twisted in its drop of water.
He grunted: “So there you are, you swine,” and spit at it.
The driver, beside himself with amusement, repeated:
“A flea, a flea! Oh, look at it, the little devil of a flea, the little devil of a flea!”
Then, his exuberance wearing off a little, he cried:
“Come now, let’s be off. We’ve wasted enough time.”
And the travellers, still laughing, made their way to the coach.
But Belhomme, last to come, declared:
“I’m off back to Criquetot. I’ve nowt to do at Havre.”
The driver told him:
“Never mind that, pay your fare.”
“I don’t owe no more than half, seeing I’ve not done half the journey.”
“You owe as much as if you’d done the lot.”
And a dispute began which very soon became a furious quarrel. Belhomme swore that he would pay no more than twenty sous, Césaire Horlaville declared that he would have forty.
They shouted at each other, thrusting their faces close together and glaring into each other’s eyes. Caniveau clambered out of the coach.
“In the first place you owe forty sous to the priest, d’ye hear, and then drinks round to everyone, that makes it fifty-five, and out of that you’ll have to give Césaire twenty. How’s that, Foxy?”
The driver, delighted at the idea of
