Last week Count de Baudemont carried off Marie-Anne quietly and coolly, just like one resumes possession of one's house on returning from a journey, and drives out the intruders. And when _Maitre_ Garrulier was told of this unheard-of scandal, he rubbed his hands--his long, delicate hands of a sensual prelate--and exclaimed: "That is absolutely logical, and I should like to be in their place." THE MAN WITH THE DOGS His wife, even when talking to him, always called him Monsieur Bistaud, but in all the country round, within a radius of ten leagues in France and Belgium, he was known as _cet homme aux chiens_[5]. It was not a very valuable reputation, however, and "That man with the dogs" became a sort of pariah. [Footnote 5: That man with the dogs.] In Thierache they are not very fond of the custom-house officers, for everybody, high or low, profits by smuggling; thanks to which many articles, and especially coffee, gunpowder and tobacco are to be had cheap. It may here be stated that on that wooded, broken country, where the meadows are surrounded by brushwood, and the lanes are dark and narrow, smuggling is chiefly carried on by means of sporting dogs, who are broken in to become smuggling dogs. Scarcely an evening passes without some of them being seen, loaded with contraband, trotting silently along, pushing their noses through a hole in a hedge, with furtive and uneasy looks, and sniffing the air to scent the custom-house officers and their dogs. These dogs also are specially trained, and are very ferocious, and easily rip up their unfortunate congeners, who become the game instead of hunting for it. Now, nobody was capable of imparting this unnatural education to them so well as "the man with his dogs," whose business consisted in breaking in dogs for the custom-house authorities, and everybody looked upon it as a dirty business, a business which could only be performed by a man without any proper feeling. "He is a men's robber," the women said, "to take honest dogs into nurse, and to make a lot of Judas's out of them." While the boys shouted insulting verses behind his back, the men and the women abused him, but no one ventured to do it to his face, for he was not very patient, and was always accompanied by one of his huge dogs, and that served to make him respected.