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After a time this Auvergnat, a match for five ordinary Auvergnats, bought up old saucepans and kettles, old picture-frames, old copper, and chipped china. Gradually, as the shop was emptied and filled, the quality of the stock-in-trade improved, like Nicolet's farces.
I would not take a Breton for a Bourgignon, nor a Poitevin for an Auvergnat. I sold lots of Auvergnats last year, after the battle of Puy. Your age?" "Twenty-nine." "Age, twenty-nine," he wrote on his tablet. "Your occupation?" "Laborer." "Laborer," repeated the "horse-dealer" in a surprised and injured tone, scratching his ear with his stylus. "You are nothing but a laborer?
I put the fan back into the box lest my Auvergnat should begin to look at it, and went into ecstasies over the box; indeed, it is a jewel. 'If I take it, said I, 'it is for the sake of the box; the box tempts me. As for the what-not, you will get more than a thousand francs for that. Just see how the brass is wrought; it is a model.
Remonencq waved the speaker away, in Auvergnat fashion, but the man replied with another gesture, which being interpreted means "Don't spoil sport"; a piece of commercial free-masonry, as it were, which the dealer understood. "I represent the firm of Sonet and Company, monumental stone-masons; Sir Walter Scott would have dubbed me Young Mortality," continued this person.
In order to be able to spy at his ease and hang about the house, he had followed the example of those police officers who seek a good disguise, and bought up cast-off clothes of an Auvergnat, the appearance of whom he sought to imitate.
Falleix had been brought to the Saillard's house by old Bidault, who lent him money on his merchandise. Falleix thought his old countryman extortionate, and complained to the Saillards that Gigonnet demanded eighteen per cent from an Auvergnat. Madame Saillard ventured to remonstrate with her uncle.
Dominique related briefly the rumour just come from Châlons: A Guardsman of the Noailles had related it to a comrade in the presence of his servant, and the servant had hurried to communicate it, with many questions, to Dominique. Germain paled, yet only for an instant. He laughed at the Auvergnat, who snorted apologetically "As if Monsieur looked like a pedlar!"
When he saw, as I may say, what kind of wood was burning for him, at the very thickest moment of the torrent, he cut a last caper, fell flat down at the foot of the tree, kicked a moment, and then shammed dead, not budging any more than a log. The Auvergnat wished nothing more; believing the ape done for, he cleared out, never to put his feet in Cut-in-half's drum again.
The two ladies I have named, the Governor's wife, a little Corsican woman whose heavy eyebrows, white teeth and ruddy cheeks, dark in the lower part, make her look like a clean-shaved Auvergnat a clever creature by the way, and always laughing except when her husband looks at other women these with a few Levantines with diadems of gold or pearls, less resplendent than ours but in the same style, wives of upholsterers, jewellers, dealers who supply the household regularly, with shoulders as extensive as shop-fronts and dresses in which the material was not sparingly used; and lastly, several wives of clerks at the Caisse Territoriale, with rustling dresses and devil a sou in their pockets, such was the representation of the fair sex at that function, some thirty ladies lost among myriads of black coats; one might as well say that there were none at all there.
He was furious with rage at learning that I had been depriving myself of spending my money, and yet he was delighted to see his wishes fulfilled; he laughed and scolded, he looked at his barrel, at his horse, and wiped away a tear, as he said, 'It is too bad. What a splendid barrel! You really ought not. Why, that horse is as strong as an Auvergnat! "I never saw a more touching scene.
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