"All this confirms me in the opinion that you are bringing up your son to be a perfect nincompoop. I shall hear of his having the blues and nervous attacks next, I suppose. He'll soon get over all this nonsense when I take him in hand, I promise you. I consented to leave him with you until he was seventeen, and even to let him have a tutor, as if he were a young duke or a marquis. I shall keep my word, so you can have your son and a tutor exactly five months longer, after which M. Frederick will enter the office of my friend Bridou, the notary, where he will stain his slender white fingers copying documents as his father and grandfather did before him. "I write to my banker in Blois by this same mail, telling him not to advance you a centime. I shall also write to my friend Bossard, the notary at Pont Brillant, who is as good as a town crier, to proclaim it from the housetops that, in case you try to borrow any money, no one is to loan you a sou, for any debts contracted by a wife without the husband's consent, or rather when he has given due notice that he has no intention of paying them, are null and void. "Besides, I warn you that I shall instruct Bridou, in case you have the audacity to undertake this journey on borrowed money, to set the police on your track and bring you back to the conjugal domicile, as I have an undoubted right to do, for no wife can leave her husband's roof without the consent of her lord and master. You know me too well to fancy for one moment that I shall hesitate to carry my threat into execution. You have a will of your own, as you have proved. Very well, you will find that I have one, too. "Don't take the trouble to answer this letter. I leave Bourges this evening for the Netherlands, where I shall probably remain until the middle of January, returning to the farm in March, to give you and my son the blowing up you so richly deserve. "It is in this hope that I sign myself your deeply incensed husband, "BASTIEN. "P.S.--You wrote me in a previous letter that the tutor had taken his departure. If you want another ass to take the place of the one that has gone, you can employ one, provided you can get him for one hundred francs a month, board and lodging--but no washing--included. Above all, don't forget that I won't have him eating at the table with me. When I am at home he will eat in his room, or in the kitchen if he wants company. "Ask Huebin to let me know how the brood sows are looking, for I want to get the premium for my hogs this fall. It is a matter of pride with me." A quarter of an hour after this coarse effusion from her lord and master had been received, Madame Bastien wrote the following letters, which were despatched to Pont Brillant at once. "TO DOCTOR DUFOUR:--Dear doctor, will you have the goodness to forward the enclosed letter to Nantes, after having first read and sealed it. My son had a comfortable night.