Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/43

 They talk business. At Nemours, the hour for divine service was also that of a weekly exchange, often attended by the masters of dwellings scattered within a circuit of half a mile. This explains the understanding between the peasants against the bourgeois in relation to the prices of provisions and of manual labor.

“And what would you have done?” said the master of Nemours to Goupil.

“I should have made myself as necessary to his life as the air he breathes. But, in the first place, you have not known how to take him! An inheritance requires as much care as a beautiful woman, and, for want of attention, they both escape. If my mistress were here,” he resumed, “she would tell you how true the simile is.”

“But Monsieur Bongrand has just told me not to make ourselves uneasy,” replied the justice’s clerk.

“Oh! there are many ways of saying that,” answered Goupil, laughing. “I should like to have heard your sly justice of the peace! If there was nothing more to be done; if, like him who lives with your uncle, I knew all was lost, I should tell you ‘not to worry about anything!’

Whilst pronouncing these last words, Goupil wore so comical a smile and gave it so clear a meaning, that the heirs suspected the clerk of having been taken in by the cunning of the justice of the peace. The tax-collector, a fat little man, as insignificant as a tax-collector ought to be, and as unimportant