"Enough! I saw that clearly this evening. If you had not prevented him, that blackguard would have used abusive language to me and ranged himself on your side. It is very plain, and he is not the only one. As soon as I arrive here, in my own house, each one of you says, 'There is the enemy, there is the wild boar, there is the ogre!' Ah, well, let me be an ogre; that suits me very well." "You are mistaken, monsieur; I have always taught your son the respect that is due you, and this evening even--" "Enough!" cried Hercules, interrupting his wife. And he pursued his thought with the tenacity of the drunkard, who concentrates upon one idea all the lucidity of mind left to him. "I tell you again," continued he, "that since our marriage you have served me in nothing; you have made of my son a coxcomb, who requires preceptors and pleasure excursions to drive away his hysterics, and who, over and above that, curses me; you have rifled my wood and my silver, you have stolen from me!" "Monsieur!" cried Marie, indignant. "You have stolen from me!" repeated Hercules, in such a thundering voice, that Marie clasped her hands, and murmured: "Oh, for mercy's sake, monsieur, not so loud, not so loud!" "Now then, since in these seventeen years you have done me nothing but evil, this cannot last." "What do you mean?" "I have enough of it." "But--" "I have too much of it. I want no more of it." "I do not understand you, monsieur." "No? Well, then, when a person or a thing plagues me, I get rid of it, and the quicker the better." Notwithstanding his excitement, Madame Bastien did not for a moment believe that her husband thought of killing her; so, trying to discover his intention, under his mask of besotted anger, she said to him: "If I understand you rightly, monsieur, you have decided to rid yourself of persons who annoy you or displease you?" "Just so! As your little puppy of a son plagues me, to-morrow I will get rid of him." "You will get rid of him? But, monsieur--" "Silence! Bridou will take him; he will take him away with him to-morrow evening, upon our return from Blémur." "You say, monsieur, that M. Bridou will take my son; please explain to me." "He will take him for his board as a young clerk, and your Benjamin who is not mine will be lodged, fed, and washed, and at eighteen years will get six hundred francs, if Bridou is satisfied with him." "Nobody will dispose of my son's future without my consent, monsieur." "Eh!" replied Jacques, with a sort of hollow roar. "Oh, monsieur, if you were to kill me on the spot, I would say the same thing." "Eh!" again roared the colossus, more threatening still. "I tell you, monsieur, that my son shall not leave me. He will continue his studies under the direction of his preceptor. I will inform you, if you wish, of the plans I have for Frederick, and--"