"No, I will not go to your house to-night," said the carpenter, "but I will go with you to your gate; for yonder's a wicked-looking cloud, and in a few minutes it won't be pleasant walking. Here, Monsieur de Boisguilbault, take my advice and put this leather apron of mine over your shoulders. It isn't handsome, but it never touches anything but wood--my trade is a clean one, that is what I have always liked about it--and it isn't afraid of the water." "On the contrary, I insist on your putting it on your own back; you are drenched with perspiration, and although you choose to treat me as an old man, you are no longer young yourself, my friend. Come, no ceremony! I am warmly clad. Don't take cold on my account; remember that I struck you to-night." "You are as sly as the devil! Well, let us be off! It is true, I am no longer young, although I don't feel my years much as yet. But do you know that I am hardly ten years younger than you? Do you remember the time I built the wooden house in your park--your chalet, as you call it? Well, it was nineteen years ago last St. Jean's Day that I raised the frame." "Yes, that is true, only nineteen years. It seems longer to me. By the way, the little house is very well built, and there are very few repairs to make. Will you look after them?" "If there's anything to be done, I don't say no. It's a job that gave me a lot of trouble in its time. How often I had to look at your devilish pictures to try to make it look like them!" "It is your master-piece and you enjoyed it." "Yes, there were days when I enjoyed it too much, it made me sick; but when you would come and say: 'Jean, that isn't right; you are making a mistake;' _dame_! how angry you made me!" "You lost your temper and almost told me to be off!" "And you used to let me talk in those days. I would never have believed that, after being so patient with me for so many years, you would suddenly fly out at me without telling me why. By the way, what is there to be done to the wooden house?" "There's a devil of a door that doesn't shut." "The wood has warped, I suppose. When shall I come?" "To-morrow. That's why you must come and sleep at my house; the weather's too bad for you to go back to Gargilesse." "It is black enough to break one's neck, that's a fact. Look out where you step, you are almost in the ditch! But if it rained scythe-blades, I would go home to sleep to-night." "Have you important business on hand?" "Yes. I want to see young Emile Cardonnet, to whom I have something to say." "Emile! Have you seen him to-day?" "No; I started very early to attend to his matters. If you weren't so peculiar, I would tell you about it, as you know the bulk of his story." "I don't think he has any secrets for me. However, if he has confided something more to you than to me, I have no desire to know it." "Never fear, I have no desire to tell it to you, either."