“Then he was foolish,” answered the valet, sententiously.

“Is Monsieur le Serizy going to live at Presles at last?” asked Pierrotin; “for you know they have just repaired and refurnished the chateau.  Do you think it is true he has already spent two hundred thousand francs upon it?”

“If you or I had half what he has spent upon it, you and I would be rich bourgeois.  If Madame la comtesse goes there—­ha!  I tell you what! no more ease and comfort for the Moreaus,” said the valet, with an air of mystery.

“He’s a worthy man, Monsieur Moreau,” remarked Pierrotin, thinking of the thousand francs he wanted to get from the steward.  “He is a man who makes others work, but he doesn’t cheapen what they do; and he gets all he can out of the land—­for his master.  Honest man!  He often comes to Paris and gives me a good fee:  he has lots of errands for me to do in Paris; sometimes three or four packages a day,—­either from monsieur or madame.  My bill for cartage alone comes to fifty francs a month, more or less.  If madame does set up to be somebody, she’s fond of her children; and it is I who fetch them from school and take them back; and each time she gives me five francs,—­a real great lady couldn’t do better than that.  And every time I have any one in the coach belonging to them or going to see them, I’m allowed to drive up to the chateau,—­that’s all right, isn’t it?”

“They say Monsieur Moreau wasn’t worth three thousand francs when Monsieur le comte made him steward of Presles,” said the valet.

“Well, since 1806, there’s seventeen years, and the man ought to have made something at any rate.”

“True,” said the valet, nodding.  “Anyway, masters are very annoying; and I hope, for Moreau’s sake, that he has made butter for his bread.”

“I have often been to your house in the rue de la Chaussee d’Antin to carry baskets of game,” said Pierrotin, “but I’ve never had the advantage, so far of seeing either monsieur or madame.”

“Monsieur le comte is a good man,” said the footman, confidentially.  “But if he insists on your helping to keep up his cognito there’s something in the wind.  At any rate, so we think at the house; or else, why should he countermand the Daumont,—­why travel in a coucou?  A peer of France might afford to hire a cabriolet to himself, one would think.”

“A cabriolet would cost him forty francs to go there and back; for let me tell you, if you don’t know it, that road was only made for squirrels,—­up-hill and down, down-hill and up!” said Pierrotin.  “Peer of France or bourgeois, they are all looking after the main chance, and saving their money.  If this journey concerns Monsieur Moreau, faith, I’d be sorry any harm should come to him!  Twenty good Gods! hadn’t I better find some way of warning him?—­for he’s a truly good man, a kind man, a king of men, hey!”