as a grid-iron, and that chip o' the block as
pink as vine-shoot."

"Your healths!" cried the old man, "and a fine lot of scoundrels you
are! All hail!" he said to his granddaughter, whom he spied kissing
Bonnebault, "hail, Marie, full of vice! Satan is with three; cursed art
thou among women, etcetera. All hail, the company present! you are done
for, every one of you! you may just say good-bye to your sheaves. I
being news. I always told you the rich would crush us; well now, the
Shopman is going to have the law of you! Ha! see what it is to struggle
against those bourgeois fellows, who have made so many laws since they
got into power that they've a law to enforce every trick they play--"

A violent hiccough gave a sudden turn to the ideas of the distinguished
orator.

"If Vermichel were only here I'd blow in his gullet, and he'd get an
idea of sherry wine. Hey! what a wine it is! If I wasn't a Burgundian
I'd be a Spaniard! It's God's own wine! the pope says mass with it--Hey!
I'm young again! Say, Courtecuisse! if your wife were only here we'd be
young together. Don't tell me! Spanish wine is worth a dozen of boiled
wine. Let's have a revolution if it's only to empty the cellars!"

"But what's your news, papa?" said Tonsard.

"There'll be no harvest for you; the Shopman has given orders to stop
the gleaning."

"Stop the gleaning!" cried the whole tavern, with one voice, in which
the shrill tones of the four women predominated.

"Yes," said Mouche, "he is going to issue an order, and Groison is to
take it round, and post it up all over the canton. No one is to glean
except those who have pauper certificates."

"And what's more," said Fourchon, "the folks from the other districts
won't be allowed here at all."

"What's that?" cried Bonnebault, "do you mean to tell me that neither
my grandmother nor I, nor your mother, Godain, can come here and glean?
Here's tomfoolery for you; a pretty show of authority! Why, the fellow
is a devil let loose from hell,--that scoundrel of a mayor!"

"Shall you glean whether or no, Godain?" said Tonsard to the journeyman
wheelwright, who was saying a few words to Catherine.

"I? I've no property; I'm a pauper," he replied; "I shall ask for a
certificate."

"What did they give my father for his otter, bibi?" said Madame Tonsard
to Mouche.

Though nearly at his last gasp from an over-taxed digestion and two
bottles of wine, Mouche, sitting on Madame Tonsard's lap, laid his he