e
townhall on a board _ad hoc_ the names of all those who during the week
got intoxicated on alcohol. Besides, with regard to statistics, one
would thus have, as it were, public records that one could refer to in
case of need. But excuse me!"

And he once more ran off to the captain. The latter was going back to
see his lathe again.

"Perhaps you would not do ill," Homais said to him, "to send one of your
men, or to go yourself----"

"Leave me alone!" answered the tax-collector. "It's all right!"

"Do not be uneasy," said the chemist, when he returned to his friends.
"Monsieur Binet has assured me that all precautions have been taken. No
sparks have fallen; the pumps are full. Let us go to rest."

"_Ma foi!_ I want it," said Madame Homais, yawning at large. "But never
mind; we've had a beautiful day for our fete."

Rodolphe repeated in a low voice, and with a tender look, "Oh, yes! very
beautiful."

And having bowed to one another, they separated.

Two days later, in the "Fanal de Rouen," there was a long article on the
show. Homais had composed it with _verve_ the very next morning.

"Why these festoons, these flowers, these garlands? Whither hurries this
crowd like the waves of a furious sea under the torrents of a tropical
sun pouring its heat upon our heads?"

Then he spoke of the condition of the peasants. Certainly the Government
was doing much, but not enough. "Courage!" he cried to it; "a thousand
reforms are indispensable; let us accomplish them!" Then touching on the
entry of the councilor, he did not forget "the martial air of our
militia," nor "our most merry village maidens," nor the "bald-headed
old men like patriarchs who were there, and of whom some, the remnants
of our immortal phalanxes, still felt their hearts beat at the manly
sound of the drums." He cited himself among the first of the members of
the jury, and he even called attention in a note to the fact that
Monsieur Homais, chemist, had sent a memoir on cider to the agricultural
society. When he came to the distribution of the prizes, he painted the
joy of the prize-winners in dithyrambic strophes. "The father embraced
the son, the brother the brother, the husband his consort. More than one
showed his humble medal with pride; and no doubt when he got home to his
good housewife, he hung it up weeping on the modest walls of his cot.

"About six o'clock a banquet prepared in the meadow of Monsieur Leigeard
brought together the principa