cats for which I was responsible. I
was only too happy if Micou favoured me with a stroke of his claw
that tore my cuff or my wrist. Criquette is liable to colic; 'tis I
who have to rub her. In old days mademoiselle used to have the
vapours; to-day, it is her nerves. She is beginning to grow a
little stout; you should hear the fine tales they make out of this.

_I._--You do not belong to people of this sort, at any rate?

_He._--Why not?

_I._--Because it is indecent to throw ridicule on one's
benefactors.

_He._--But is it not worse still to take advantage of one's
benefits to degrade the receiver of them?

_I._--But if the receiver of them were not vile in himself, nothing
would give the benefactor the chance.

_He._--But if the personages were not ridiculous in themselves they
would not make subjects for good tales. And then, is it my fault if
they mix with rascaldom? Is it my fault if, after mixing themselves
up with rascaldom, they are betrayed and made fools of? When people
resolve to live with people like us, if they have common sense,
there is an infinite quantity of blackness for which they must make
up their minds. When they take us, do they not know us for what we
are, for the most interested, vile, and perfidious of souls. Then
if they know us, all is well. There is a tacit compact that they
shall treat us well, and that sooner or later we shall treat them
ill in return for the good that they have done us. Does not such an
agreement subsist between a man and his monkey or his parrot?... If
you take a young provincial to the menagerie at Versailles, and he
takes it into his head for a freak to push his hands between the
bars of the cage of the tiger or the panther, whose fault is it? It
is all written in the silent compact, and so much the worse for the
man who forgets or ignores it. How I could justify by this
universal and sacred compact the people whom you accuse of
wickedness, whereas it is in truth yourselves whom you ought to
accuse of folly.... But while we execute the just decrees of
Providence on folly, you who paint us as we are, you execute its
just decrees on us. What would you think of us, if we claimed, with
our shameless manners, to enjoy public consideration? That we are
out of our senses. And those who l