In the car they met a merchant, named Bonnaud, an intimate friend of Lansade. It was necessary to break the silence and engage in one of those trivial conversations so tedious to persons preoccupied by a single idea. Fortunately, the merchant was loquacious, and the two friends were content to let him do most of the talking. “When we reflect,” cried Bonnaud, “that formerly it took three hours and a half, and sometimes five, to go to Versailles, and that now thirty-five minutes suffice for the whole trip, it is almost incredible! It took me, in 1829,--the year of the cold winter,--five days and nights to come from Bordeaux, which is to-day a journey of only thirteen hours! It is astounding!” “Nothing more so,” replied Paul, complacently assenting. “And to think,” continued Bonnaud, “that there are in the world so many ignorant and insincere people----” “There are a great many,” interrupted Buck. “What?” “Ignorant and insincere people, as you just remarked.” “True; ignorant and insincere people, who pretend--what do I say? who deny--that this is an age of progress.” “What! there are individuals so stupid, so benighted, as to maintain such absurdities!” returned the painter, rising angrily: “that is not possible!” “Yes, my dear sir, there are such people,--more of them than you may imagine: I know many such.” “Well, my best wishes to them, but their intellects are sadly obscured.” Eusebe, who was ignorant of what the artists call “_faire poser un bourgeois_” (to make a fool of one), looked at his friend with astonishment. The merchant, however, continued, with an air of importance:-- “Since devastating wars have ceased to ravage our glorious country, the arts, the other victorious weapon of France, have secured to her conquests of far greater importance, to say nothing of steam, which would have given the world to the great Napoleon; and then the astonishing discoveries of chemistry! But, leaving all that out of the question, what is so grand and surprising as to see the events that agitate the universe heralded from point to point by numerous metal threads bordering the roads and traversing the land? The electric telegraph would suffice to illustrate our age! And then photography!----” “No more, I beg of you!” interrupted Paul Buck. “I will say nothing of the electric wires, although they disfigure the landscape; but not a word of photography before breakfast, I insist: it would bring bad luck.” “I respect every thing, even the most absurd superstition. It is my inflexible tolerance for opinions of every description which has rendered me hostile to those who would mar the grandeur of our age and check our progress towards a perfect civilization.” The painter, who could hardly restrain an inclination to laugh, bit his lips, and turned to look out at the door. Then Bonnaud, who was determined to have an interlocutor at all hazards, addressed himself to Eusebe:-- “Are you not of my opinion, Monsieur Martin?”