-sow them
there, to propagate some, destroy others; in brief, one must keep pace
with science by means of pamphlets and public papers, be always on the
alert to find out improvements."

The landlady never took her eyes off the "Cafe Francois" and the chemist
went on--

"Would to God our agriculturists were chemists, or that at least they
would pay more attention to the counsels of science. Thus lately I
myself wrote a considerable tract, a memoir of over seventy-two pages,
entitled, 'Cider, its Manufacture and its Effects, together with some
New Reflections on the Subject,' that I sent to the Agricultural Society
of Rouen, and which even procured me the honour of being received among
its members--Section, Agriculture; Class, Pomological. Well, if my
work had been given to the public--" But the druggist stopped, Madame
Lefrancois seemed so preoccupied.

"Just look at them!" she said. "It's past comprehension! Such a cookshop
as that!" And with a shrug of the shoulders that stretched out over her
breast the stitches of her knitted bodice, she pointed with both hands
at her rival's inn, whence songs were heard issuing. "Well, it won't
last long," she added. "It'll be over before a week."

Homais drew back with stupefaction. She came down three steps and
whispered in his ear--

"What! you didn't know it? There is to be an execution in next week.
It's Lheureux who is selling him out; he has killed him with bills."

"What a terrible catastrophe!" cried the druggist, who always found
expressions in harmony with all imaginable circumstances.

Then the landlady began telling him the story that she had heard from
Theodore, Monsieur Guillaumin's servant, and although she detested
Tellier, she blamed Lheureux. He was "a wheedler, a sneak."

"There!" she said. "Look at him! he is in the market; he is bowing to
Madame Bovary, who's got on a green bonnet. Why, she's taking Monsieur
Boulanger's arm."

"Madame Bovary!" exclaimed Homais. "I must go at once and pay her my
respects. Perhaps she'll be very glad to have a seat in the enclosure
under the peristyle." And, without heeding Madame Lefrancois, who was
calling him back to tell him more about it, the druggist walked off
rapidly with a smile on his lips, with straight knees, bowing copiously
to right and left, and taking up much room with the large tails of his
frock-coat that fluttered behind him in the wind.

Rodolphe, having caught sight of him from afar, hurried on, b