"Hush, Emile, not Monday! I don't agree to that. You don't know this man. Intelligent as he is and prolific in inventions, sometimes successful, often puerile, he never enjoys himself except when he is working at absurd things for his own use; he is something of a carpenter, a cabinet-maker, Heaven knows what! He is clever with his hands, but when he abandons himself to his own whims, he becomes idle, absent-minded and incapable of serious work." "He is an artist, father," said Emile, smiling, but with tears in his eyes; "have a little compassion for genius!" Monsieur Cardonnet cast a contemptuous glance at his son, but Jean took the young man's hand. "My boy," he said, with his strange and noble familiarity, "I do not know whether you really do me justice or are laughing at me, but what you say is true! I have too much of the spirit of invention for the sort of work he would have me do here. When I work for my friends in the village, for Monsieur Antoine or the curé or the mayor or poor beggars like myself, they say: 'Do as you please, carry out your own ideas, old fellow! it may take a little longer, but it will be all right!' And then I take pleasure in working, yes, so much pleasure that I don't count the hours and spend part of the night at it. It tires me, it gives me the fever, it almost kills me sometimes! but I like it, you see, my boy, as other men like wine. It's my amusement. Oh! you laugh and make fun of me, Monsieur Cardonnet; your sneering is an insult, and you shouldn't have me, no, you shouldn't have me, even if the gendarmes were here and my head was in danger. Sell myself to you, body and soul, for two years! Do what pleases you, watch you plan, and not give my opinion! for if you know me, I know you too: I know what sort of a man you are, and that there isn't a nail driven on your premises until you've measured it. And I shall be a day-laborer, working to pay my taxes as my dead and gone father worked for the abbés of Gargilesse. No, God forbid! I will not sell my soul to such tiresome, stupid labor. If you would give me my day of recreation and compensation, to satisfy my old customers and myself! but no, not an hour!" "No, not an hour," said Monsieur Cardonnet angrily; for the self-esteem of the artist was now involved on both sides. "Off with you, I'll have none of you; take this napoléon and go and get hanged elsewhere." "They don't hang people now, monsieur," said Jean, throwing the gold piece on the floor, "and even if they did, I shouldn't be the first honest man who ever passed through the hangman's hands." "Emile," said Monsieur Cardonnet, as soon as he was gone, "go and send up the constable, that man standing on the stoop with a little iron fork in his hand." "Great Heaven! what are you going to do?" said Emile in dismay.