United States or Isle of Man ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At four o'clock, Joseph crossed the open space which separated the Rouget house from the Hochon house, a sort of avenue of weakly lindens, two hundred feet long and of the same width as the rue Grande Narette. When the nephew arrived, Kouski, in polished boots, black cloth trousers, white waistcoat, and black coat, announced him.
Joseph returned home at eleven o'clock somewhat tipsy. As to old Rouget, Kouski had carried him to his bed dead-drunk; he had eaten as though he were an actor from foreign parts, and had soaked up the wine like the sands of the desert. "Well," said Max when he was alone with Flore, "isn't this better than making faces at them?
Vedie and Kouski, who came to listen, exploded in the kitchen, and as to Flore, she laughed convulsively. "Are you quite sure he has not made any other will since the one in which he left the property to you?" "He hasn't anything to write with," she answered. "He might have dictated it to some notary," said Max; "we must look out for that.
"Madame said like this," Kouski replied, " that I was to tell monsieur she had taken twenty thousand francs in gold from his drawer, thinking that monsieur wouldn't refuse her that amount as wages for the last twenty-two years." "Wages?" exclaimed Rouget. "Yes," replied Kouski. "Ah! I shall never come back," she said to Vedie as she drove away.
"Put the horse in quietly," said Max to Kouski; "manage, if you can, that the town shall not know of this nonsense, for Monsieur Rouget's sake. Saddle my horse," he added in a whisper. "I will ride on ahead of you."
"It is Max! it is Max!" cried voices outside; and then a deep silence reigned in the room and in the street, for Gilet's known character made every one expect a taunt. "May we all meet again at this time next year," said Max, bowing ironically to Philippe. "It's coming!" whispered Kouski to his neighbor. "The Paris police would never allow a banquet of this kind," said Potel to Philippe.
"This is Saint-Lambert's day, and he who deserts his place, loses it," remarked Benjamin to the Pole. "My master will shut your mouth for you," answered Kouski, departing to join Max who established himself at the hotel de la Poste. On the morrow, between nine and eleven o'clock, all the women talked to each other from door to door throughout the town.
Women are bad children; they are inferior animals to men; we must make them fear us; the worst condition in the world is to be governed by such brutes." It was about half-past two in the afternoon when the old man got home. Kouski opened the door in tears, that is, by Max's orders, he gave signs of weeping. "Oh! Monsieur, Madame has gone away, and taken Vedie with her!"
Jean-Jacques's impatience made him follow Max within twenty minutes. Kouski, no doubt under orders from his master, walked the horse through the town. "If they get to Paris, all is lost," thought Monsieur Hochon. At this moment, a lad from the faubourg de Rome came to the Hochon house with a letter for Baruch.
"Madame is going back to her own people, that's plain," said Kouski. "Would you like to go to Vatan to-night?" said Max. "The road is bad, but Kouski knows how to drive, and you'll make your peace better to-night than to-morrow morning." "Let us go!" cried Rouget.
Word Of The Day