"Yes, my son is a good fellow, Jean," said Monsieur Cardonnet to the peasant, when the latter accepted a full glass from Emile's hand. "And you are a good fellow, too, and it's high time that you should show it a little better than you have been doing for two months past." "I beg your pardon, monsieur," replied Jean, looking about him with a suspicious air, "but I am too old to go to school, and I didn't come here all in a sweat to listen to moral preaching as cold as hoar-frost. Here's your health, Monsieur Cardonnet; and I thank you, young man, whose feelings I must have hurt last night. You bear me no grudge, do you?" "Wait a moment," said Monsieur Cardonnet; "before you go back to your fox's hole, take this _pour-boire_." And he handed him a piece of gold. "Keep it, keep it," said Jean testily, pushing away the proffered gratuity with a movement of his elbow. "I am not self-seeking, as you must know, and it wasn't to please you that I helped your carpenters. It was simply to keep them from breaking their backs for nothing. And then when a man knows his trade it irritates him to see people go about it wrong end to. My blood's a little quick, and in spite of myself I meddled in something that didn't concern me." "Just as you happened to be where you had no business to be," rejoined Monsieur Cardonnet sternly, and with an evident purpose to awe the audacious peasant. "Jean, this is the last opportunity for us to come to an understanding and make each other's acquaintance; make the most of it or you'll be sorry. When I came here last year, I observed your activity, your intelligence, and the affection with which all the workmen and all the people of this village regarded you. I received most satisfactory accounts of your probity, and I resolved to put you in charge of my carpentering work; I offered to pay you double wages, by the day or by the job as you chose. You made me nonsensical answers as if you did not consider me a serious-minded man." "That was not the trouble, monsieur, begging your pardon. I told you that I didn't need your work because I had more work in the village than I could do." "A mere pretext and a lie! Your affairs were in bad shape then and now they're in worse shape than ever! Being prosecuted for debt, you have been obliged to leave your house, to abandon your workshop, and to hide in the mountains, like game pursued by hunters." "When you undertake to argue," rejoined Jean, haughtily, "you should tell the truth. I am not prosecuted for debt, as you say, monsieur. I have always been an honest, well-behaved man, and if I owe a sou in the village or the neighborhood, let some one come forward and say so and raise his hand against me. Search and you will find no one!" "None the less, there are three warrants out against you, and the gendarmes have been chasing you for two months and can't succeed in apprehending you."