“And however shall we get it down again?” said the Spaniard, whose little eyes expressed positive terror, while his tawny hollow face, which looked as if it could never change color, turned pale.
“Well,” said Max, “I see no difficulty in that.”
And taking advantage of Fario’s bewilderment, he took the cart up by the shafts, giving it a tilt with his strong arms so as to give it impetus; then, at the moment when he let it go, he shouted in a voice of thunder, “Look out below!” But there was no danger. The crowd, warned by François, and eager with curiosity, had withdrawn to a little distance to see what was going on on the knoll. The cart smashed in picturesque style, broken into a thousand pieces.
“There, it is down again!” said Baruch.
“Ah, blackguards, thieves, villains!” yelled Fario. “It was you who got it up, I’ll be bound!”
Max, Baruch, and their three comrades began to laugh at the Spaniard’s abuse.
“We wanted to do you a service,” said Max haughtily. “To save your damned cart I ran the risk of going down on the top of it, and this is how you thank me. What country do you come from, pray?”
“From a country where we do not forgive an injury,” replied Fario, quivering with rage. “My cart may serve you a turn to take you to the Devil! Unless,” he added, as mild as a lamb, “you like to replace it by a new one?”
“We will talk about it,” said Max, going down the hill.
When they were at the bottom, and had rejoined the first group of laughers. Max took Fario by the jacket-button, and said:
“Yes, my good Fario, I will make you a present of a splendid cart if you will give me two hundred and fifty francs; I won’t guarantee that, like this one, it is warranted for a tumbler’s trap.”
This jest, however, touched Fario no more than if he were concluding an ordinary bargain.
“Dame!” he replied calmly, “you will give me francs enough to replace my poor cart, and you will never spend Père Rouget’s money in a better cause.”
Max turned white and lifted his formidable fist to strike Fario; but Baruch, who knew that such a blow would not fall only on the Spaniard, whisked him off like a feather, saying to Max in an undertone, “Don’t play the fool!”
The Major, recalled to order, began to laugh, and said to Fario, “Though I have by accident damaged your cart, you are trying to slander me, so we are quits.”
“Not yet,” muttered Fario. “But I am glad to have found out what my cart is worth!”
“Ah, ha! Max, you have found your match!” said a bystander, who was not a member of the Order.
“Goodbye, Monsieur Gilet; you have not heard the last of your clever trick!” said the Spaniard, mounting his horse and disappearing in the midst of a loud hurrah!
“I will keep the iron tires for you,” cried a wheelwright, who had come out to study the effects of the fall. One of the shafts was standing upright, planted in the ground like a tree.
Max was pale and thoughtful, stung to the heart by the Spaniard’s speech. For five days at Issoudun Fario’s cart was the talk of the town. It was fated to travel far, as young Goddet said, for it made the round of the province, where the pranks of Max and Baruch were much discussed. Hence, even a week after the event, the Spaniard was still the talk of the departments and the subject of much “jaw,” a fact to which he was keenly alive. Max and la Rabouilleuse, too, as a result of the vindictive Spaniard’s retort, were the subject of endless comments, whispered indeed at Issoudun, but loudly spoken at Bourges, at Vatan, at Vierzon, and at Châteauroux. Maxence Gilet knew the country well enough to imagine how envenomed these remarks must be.
“No one can hinder their talking,” thought he. “Ah! that was a bad night’s work.”
“Well, Max,” said François, taking his arm, “they are to be here tonight.”
“Who?”
“The Bridaus. My grandmother has just had a letter from her goddaughter.”
“Listen to me, my boy,” said Max in his ear; “I have thought this business over very seriously. Neither Flore nor I must appear to have any ill-feeling towards the Bridaus. If the heirs leave Issoudun, it is your people, the Hochons, who must seem to be the cause. Study these Paris folks well; and when I have taken their measure, tomorrow at la Cognette’s we will see what can be done with them, and how we can make a breach between them and your grandfather.”
“The Spaniard has found the joint in Max’s harness,” said Baruch to his cousin François as they went in, looking at his friend entering Rouget’s door.
While Max was thus occupied, Flore, notwithstanding her companion’s counsel, had been unable to control her rage; without knowing whether she was seconding or interfering with Max’s plans, she broke out against the poor old bachelor. When Jean-Jacques incurred his nurse’s displeasure, he found himself suddenly bereft of all the little cares and vulgar petting which were the joy of his life. In short, Flore put her master in disgrace. No more little affectionate words with which she was wont to grace her conversation, in various tones, with more or less tender glances—my puss, my chicken, my good old dog, my spoilt boy. No more familiar tu. A vous, short and cold, and ironically respectful, would pierce the unhappy man’s heart like a knife. This vous was a declaration of war.
Then, instead of helping him to dress, giving him his things, anticipating his wishes, looking at him with the sort of admiration women know how to convey—and the broader it is, the more gratifying—saying, “You are as fresh as a rose! Come, you look wonderfully well! How fine you are, old man!”—instead of
