ry them on."

But they would not, and sat up very straight, and looked dignified.

But the two pumps looked so distressed that he renewed the offer to
them, and Flora especially visibly hesitated, and he possessed her:
"Come, my dear, a little courage! Just look at that lilac pair; it will
suit your dress admirably ..."

That decided her, and pulling up her dress she showed a thick leg fit
for a milk-maid, in a badly-fitting, coarse stocking. The commercial
traveler stooped down and fastened the garter below the knee first of
all and then above it; and he tickled the girl gently, which made her
scream and jump. When he had done, he gave her the lilac pair, and
asked: "Who next?"

"I! I!" they all shouted at once, and he began on Rosa _the Jade_, who
uncovered a shapeless, round thing without any ankle, a regular "sausage
of a leg," as Raphaele used to say.

The commercial traveler complimented Fernande, and grew quite
enthusiastic over her powerful columns.

The thin tibias of the handsome Jewess met less success, and Louise
Cocote, by way of a joke, put her petticoats over his head, so that
_Madame_ was obliged to interfere to check such unseemly behavior.

Lastly, _Madame_ herself put out her leg, a handsome, muscular, Norman
leg, and in his surprise and pleasure, the commercial traveler gallantly
took off his hat to salute that master calf, like a true French
cavalier.

The two peasants, who were speechless from surprise, looked aside, out
of the corners of their eyes, and they looked so exactly like fowls that
the man with the light whiskers, when he sat up, said _co--co--ri--co_,
under their very noses, and that gave rise to another storm of
amusement.

The old people got out at Motteville, with their basket, their ducks,
and their umbrella, and they heard the woman say to her husband, as they
went away:

"They are bad women, who are off to that cursed place Paris."

The funny commercial traveler himself got out at Rouen, after behaving
so coarsely, that _Madame_ was obliged sharply to put him into his
right place, and she added, as a moral: "This will teach us not to talk
to the first comer."

At Oissel they changed trains, and at a little station further on,
Monsieur Joseph Rivet was waiting for them with a large cart and a
number of chairs in it, which was drawn by a white horse.

The carpenter politely kissed all the ladies, and then helped them into
his conveyance.

Three of them sat on thre