“Ha! there’s no chance of grabbing that secret,” replied Fourchon, “Socquard always locks himself in when he boils his wine; he never told how he does it to his late wife.  He sends to Paris for his materials.”

“Don’t plague your father,” cried Tonsard; “doesn’t he know? well, then, he doesn’t know!  People can’t know everything!”

Fourchon grew very uneasy on seeing how his son-in-law’s countenance softened as well as his words.

“What do you want to rob me of now?” he asked, candidly.

“I?” said Tonsard, “I take none but my legitimate dues; if I get anything from you it is in payment of your daughter’s portion, which you promised me and never paid.”

Fourchon, reassured by the harshness of this remark, dropped his head on his breast as though vanquished and convinced.

“Look at that pretty snare,” resumed Tonsard, coming up to his father-in-law and laying the trap upon his knee.  “Some of these days they’ll want game at Les Aigues, and we shall sell them their own, or there will be no good God for the poor folks.”

“A fine piece of work,” said the old man, examining the mischievous machine.

“It is very well to pick up the sous now, papa,” said Mam Tonsard, “but you know we are to have our share in the cake of Les Aigues.”

“Oh, what chatterers women are!” cried Tonsard.  “If I am hanged it won’t be for a shot from my gun, but for the gabble of your tongue.”

“And do you really suppose that Les Aigues will be cut up and sold in lots for your pitiful benefit?” asked Fourchon.  “Pshaw! haven’t you discovered in the last thirty years that old Rigou has been sucking the marrow out of your bones that the middle-class folks are worse than the lords?  Mark my words, when that affair happens, my children, the Soudrys, the Gaubertins, the Rigous, will make you kick your heels in the air.  ‘I’ve the good tobacco, it never shall be thine,’ that’s the national air of the rich man, hey?  The peasant will always be the peasant.  Don’t you see (but you never did understand anything of politics!) that government puts such heavy taxes on wine only to hinder our profits and keep us poor?  The middle classes and the government, they are all one.  What would become of them if everybody was rich?  Could they till their fields?  Would they gather the harvest?  No, they want the poor!  I was rich for ten years and I know what I thought of paupers.”

“Must hunt with them, though,” replied Tonsard, “because they mean to cut up the great estates; after that’s done, we can turn against them.  If I’d been Courtecuisse, whom that scoundrel Rigou is ruining, I’d have long ago paid his bill with other balls than the poor fellow gives him.”

“Right enough, too,” replied Fourchon.  “As Pere Niseron says (and he stayed republican long after everybody else), ’The people are tough; they don’t die; they have time before them.’”