You a
bad manager, indeed!"
"Do not talk of anything so imprudent."
"He would roll like a ball," said Jean longingly.
"Jean!"
"Bah, you need not fear. To do things sometimes in imagination is the
only way of keeping my muscles in exercise. Oh, if I could only get a
little fresh air, or drop in at the _brasserie_ and hear what is doing!"
"See, here," said Marie, true to her mission of comforter, "to-night we
shall have a luxury, for this work must be finished and carried home
to-morrow morning, and so I shall allow myself a candle. Sometimes I am
afraid that I want more light than in old days, but I daresay that is a
foolish fancy. The cabbage will be ready in a few minutes; meanwhile,
tell me what more news you have got there in the paper. M. Plon has a
great respect for my scholarship, but he is afraid I waste my time over
his journals--aha, M. Plon, you little know that I have got my reader!"
"Plon is an ass," said Jean gruffly, for he did not like any one to find
a flaw in the wife whom he often scolded himself.
"Perhaps," said Marie happily. "But now, find me something horribly
delightful to-night, something to make me shudder."
"Capture of a wolf in Auvergne."
"Of a wolf! Is it possible!" demanded Madame Didier, much interested.
"And how many people did he eat?"
"Only one.
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