“I have been exceedingly firm with those whom I have helped with money; if I had not been inflexible on this point, they all would have laughed at me.  Peasants, no less than worldlings, end by despising the man that they can deceive.  He has been cheated?  Clearly, then, he must have been weak; and it is might alone that governs the world.  I have never charged a penny for my professional advice, except to those who were evidently rich people; but I have not allowed the value of my services to be overlooked at all, and I always make them pay for medicine unless the patient is exceedingly poor.  If my peasants do not pay me in money, they are quite aware that they are in my debt; sometimes they satisfy their consciences by bringing oats for my horses, or corn, when it is cheap.  But if the miller were to send me some eels as a return for my advice, I should tell him that he is too generous for such a small matter.  My politeness bears fruit.  In the winter I shall have some sacks of flour for the poor.  Ah! sir, they have kind hearts, these people, if one does not slight them, and to-day I think more good and less evil of them than I did formerly.”

“What a deal of trouble you have taken!” said Genestas.

“Not at all,” answered Benassis.  “It was no more trouble to say something useful than to chatter about trifles; and whether I chatted or joked, the talk always turned on them and their concerns wherever I went.  They would not listen to me at first.  I had to overcome their dislikes; I belonged to the middle classes—­that is to say, I was a natural enemy.  I found the struggle amusing.  An easy or an uneasy conscience—­that is all the difference that lies between doing well or ill; the trouble is the same in either case.  If scoundrels would but behave themselves properly, they might be millionaires instead of being hanged.  That is all.”

“The dinner is growing cold, sir!” cried Jacquotte, in the doorway.

Genestas caught the doctor’s arm.

“I have only one comment to offer on what I have just heard,” he remarked.  “I am not acquainted with any account of the wars of Mahomet, so that I can form no opinions as to his military talents; but if you had only watched the Emperor’s tactics during the campaign in France, you might well have taken him for a god; and if he was beaten on the field of Waterloo, it was because he was more than mortal, it was because the earth found his weight too heavy to bear, and sprang from under his feet!  On every other subject I entirely agree with you, and tonnerre de Dieu! whoever hatched you did a good day’s work.”

“Come,” exclaimed Benassis with a smile, “let us sit down to dinner.”

The walls of the dining-room were paneled from floor to ceiling, and painted gray.  The furniture consisted of a few straw-bottomed chairs, a sideboard, some cupboards, a stove, and the late owner’s celebrated clock; there were white curtains in the window, and a white cloth on the table, about which there was no sign of luxury.  The dinner service was of plain white earthenware; the soup, made after the traditions of the late cure, was the most concentrated kind of broth that was ever set to simmer by any mortal cook.  The doctor and his guest had scarcely finished it when a man rushed into the kitchen, and in spite of Jacquotte, suddenly invaded the dining-room.