"Listen, Madame Sorlé," said Burguet to her; "be more reasonable than your husband! I can understand his indignation, and yet for all that, when a thing is inevitable we must submit to it. Frichard dislikes you; he is secretary of the mayoralty; he distributes the billets for quartering soldiers according to a list. Very well; he sends you Sergeant Trubert, a violent, bad man, I allow, but he needs lodging as well as the others. To everything which I have said in your favor, Frichard has always replied: 'Moses is rich. He has sent away his boys to escape conscription. He ought to pay for them.' The mayor, the governor, everybody thinks he is right. So, you see, I tell you as a friend, the more resistance you make, so much the more the sergeant will affront you, and Frichard laugh at you, and there will be no help for it. Be reasonable!" I was still more angry on finding that I owed these misfortunes to Frichard. I would have exclaimed, but my wife laid her hand on my arm, and said: "Let me speak, Moses. Monsieur Burguet is right, and I am much obliged to him for telling us beforehand. Frichard has a spite against us. Very well; he must pay for it all, and we will settle with him by and by. Now, when is the sergeant coming?" "At noon," replied Burguet. "Very well," said my wife; "he has a right to lodging, fire, and candles. We can't dispute that; but Frichard shall pay for it all." She was pale, and I listened, for I saw that she was right. "Be quiet, Moses," she said to me afterward, "and don't say a word; let me manage it." "This is what I had to say to you," said Burguet, "it is an abominable trick of Frichard's. I will see, by and by, if it is possible to rid you of the sergeant. Now I must go back to my post." Sorlé had just started for the market. Burguet pressed my hand, and as the peasants grew more impatient in their cries, I had to go back to my scales. I was full of rage. I sold that day more than two hundred francs' worth of iron, but my indignation against Frichard, and my fear of the sergeant, took away all pleasure in anything. I might have sold ten times more without feeling any better. "Ah! the rascal!" I said to myself; "he gives me no rest. I shall have no peace in this city." As the clock struck twelve the market closed, and people went away by the French gate. I shut up my shop and went home, thinking to myself: "Now I shall be nothing in my own house; this Trubert is going to rule everything. He will look down upon us as if we were Germans or Spaniards." I was in despair. But in the midst of my despair on the staircase, I suddenly perceived an odor of good things from the kitchen, and I went up in surprise, for I smelt fish and roast, as if it were a feast day. I was going into the kitchen, when Sorlé appeared and said: "Go into your chamber, shave yourself, and put on a clean shirt."