“Art thou not ashamed, profligate, to devour the dowries of thy daughters?” “Hé, goodie! What need to worry! Our little girls are pretty, they will marry without dowries. And I fear me, as thou sayest, my good Nanon, we shall have nothing for the last.” Thus teasing and cajolling the good woman, he made the usurers give him mortgages on her dowry, lending him money at the rate of fifty or a hundred per cent., and when his gambling friends came round to visit him at sundown the incorrigible scapegraces would make a carouse in the chimney corner, singing all in unison: “We are three jolly fellows who haven’t a sou.” There were times when my poor grandmother well-nigh despaired at seeing, one by one, the best portions of her inheritance disappear, but he would laugh at her fears: “Why, goosey, cry about a few acres of land, they are common as blackberries,” or: “That land, why, my dear, its returns did not pay the taxes.” And again: “That waste there? Why it was dry as heather from our neighbours’ trees.” He had always a retort equally prompt and light-hearted. Even of the usurers he would say: “My faith, but it is a happy thing there are such people. Without them, how should we spendthrifts and gamblers find the needful cash at a time when money is merchandise?” In those days Beaucaire with its famous fair was the great point of attraction on the Rhône. People of all nations, even Turks and negroes, journeyed there both by land and water. Everything made by the hand of man, whether to feed, to clothe, to house, to amuse or to ensnare, from the grindstones of the mill, bales of cloth or canvas, rings and ornaments made of coloured glass, all were to be found in profusion at Beaucaire, piled up in the great vaulted storehouses, the market-halls, the merchant vessels in the harbour or the booths in the meadows. It was a universal exhibition held yearly in the month of July of all the industries of the south. Needless to say, my grandsire took good care never to miss this occasion of going to Beaucaire for four or five days’ dissipation. Under the pretext of purchasing articles for the household--such as pepper, cloves, ginger--he went off to the fair, a handkerchief in every pocket and others new and uncut wound like a belt round his waist, for he consumed much snuff. There he strolled about from morn till eve among the jugglers, the mountebanks, the clowns, and, above all, the gypsies, watching these last with interest as they disputed and squabbled over the purchase of some skinny donkey. Punch and Judy possessed perennial joys for him. Open-mouthed he stood among the crowd, laughing like a boy at the old jokes, and experiencing an unholy joy as the blows were showered on the puppets representing law and order.