“Zoe, every living thing is destined to suffer. In vain our parents refused these fatal invitations. Madame Cornouiller came to take them each Sunday afternoon. They had to go to Montplaisir; it was an obligation from which there was absolutely no escape. It was an established order that only a revolt could break. My father finally revolted and swore not to accept another invitation from Madame Cornouiller, leaving it to my mother to find decent pretexts and varied reasons for these refusals, for which she was the least capable. Our mother did not know how to pretend.” “Say, Lucien, that she did not like to. She could tell a fib as well as any one.” “It is true that when she had good reasons she gave them rather than invent poor ones. Do you recall, my sister, that one day she said at table: ‘Fortunately, Zoe has the whooping-cough; we shall not have to go to Montplaisir for some time’?” “That was true!” said Zoe. “You got over it, Zoe. And one day Madame Cornouiller said to my mother: Dearest, I count on your coming with your husband to dine Sunday at Montplaisir.’ Our mother, expressly bidden by her husband to give Madame Cornouiller a good reason for declining, invented, in this extremity, a reason that was not the truth. ‘I am extremely sorry, dear Madame, but that will be impossible for us. Sunday I expect the gardener.’ “On hearing this, Madame Cornouiller looked through the glass door of the salon at the little wild garden, where the prickwood and the lilies looked as though they had never known the pruning-knife and were likely never to know it. ‘You expect the gardener! What for?’ “‘To work in the garden.’ “And my mother, having involuntarily turned her eyes on this little square of weeds and plants run wild, that she had called a garden, recognized with dismay the improbability of her excuse. “‘This man,’ said Madame Cornouiller, ‘could just as well work in your garden Monday or Tuesday. Moreover, that will be much better.’ One should not work on Sunday.’ “‘He works all the week.’ “I have often noticed that the most absurd and ridiculous reasons are the least disputed: they disconcert the adversary. Madame Cornouiller insisted, less than one might expect of a person so little disposed to give up. Rising from her armchair, she asked: “‘What do you call your gardener, dearest?’ “‘Putois,’ answered my mother without hesitation. “Putois was named. From that time he existed. Madame Cornouiller took herself off, murmuring: ‘Putois! It seems to me that I know that name. Putois! Putois! I must know him. But I do not recollect him. Where does he live?’ “‘He works by the day. When one wants him one leaves word with this one or that one.’ “‘Ah! I thought so, a loafer and a vagabond--a good-for-nothing. Don’t trust him, dearest.’ “From that time Putois had a character.’” II Messieurs Goubin and Jean Marteau having arrived, Monsieur Bergeret put them in touch with the conversation.