"That is the reason, yes, I understand," rejoined Monsieur Antoine; "that is the reason that you have heard some one say: 'Old Antoine degenerated terribly during his poverty; he lived with workingmen; he was seen laughing and drinking with them in wineshops.' Well, that requires a little explanation, and I will not make myself out any stronger or purer than I am. According to the ideas of the nobles and the rich bourgeois of the province, I should have done better doubtless to remain melancholy and solemn, proudly crushed by my disgrace, working in silence, sighing in secret, blushing to receive wages,--I who had had wage-earners under my orders--and taking no part on Sundays in the merrymaking of the mechanics who permitted me to work beside them during the week. Well, I do not know if it would have been better so, but, I confess, that it would have been entirely foreign to my character. I am so constituted that it is impossible for me to be affected and horrified for long by anything under heaven. I had been brought up with Jappeloup and other peasant children of my own age. I had treated them as my equals in our childish games. Since then I had never played the master or the nobleman with them. They received me with open arms in my distress, and offered me their houses, their bread, their advice, their tools and their custom. How could I have helped being fond of them? How could their society seem to me to be unworthy of me? How could I help sharing my week's wages with them on Sunday? Bah! on the contrary, I suddenly found joy and pleasure in doing it, as a compensation for my hard work. Their songs, their meetings, under the trellised arbor where the holly-branch of the wineshop waved in the wind, their frank familiarity with me, and my indissoluble friendship with dear Jean, my foster-brother, my master in carpentry, my comforter, made a new life for me, which I could not but find very pleasant, especially when I had succeeded in acquiring enough skill at my trade not to be a burden to them." "It is true enough that you worked hard," said Janille, "and that you were soon a very great help to poor Jean. Ah! I remember his fits of anger with you at the beginning, for he was never patient, the dear man, and you were so awkward! Really, Monsieur Emile, you'd have laughed to hear Jean swear after Monsieur le Comte, as he would after any little apprentice. And then, after it was over, they would make it up and shake hands, so that I used to feel like crying. But as we have actually set about telling you our whole history, instead of just quarrelling among ourselves, as I intended to do at first, I propose to tell you the rest of it; for if we let Monsieur Antoine do it, he'll never let me put in a word." "Go on, Janille, go on!" cried Monsieur Antoine; "I ask your pardon for having kept you from talking so long!" X A GOOD ACTION