“Melie and I had a morsel also, just a bite, a mere nothing, for our heart was not in it.

“Then I took up my newspaper to aid my digestion.  Every Sunday I read the Gil Blas in the shade by the side of the water.  It is Columbine’s day, you know; Columbine, who writes the articles in the Gil Blas.  I generally put Madame Renard into a rage by pretending to know this Columbine.  It is not true, for I do not know her and have never seen her, but that does not matter.  She writes very well, and then she says things that are pretty plain for a woman.  She suits me and there are not many of her sort.

“Well, I began to tease my wife, but she got angry immediately, and very angry, so I held my tongue.  At that moment our two witnesses who are present here, Monsieur Ladureau and Monsieur Durdent, appeared on the other side of the river.  We knew each other by sight.  The little man began to fish again and he caught so many that I trembled with vexation and his wife said:  ’It is an uncommonly good spot, and we will come here always, Desire.’  As for me, a cold shiver ran down my back, and Madame Renard kept repeating:  ’You are not a man; you have the blood of a chicken in your veins’; and suddenly I said to her:  ’Look here, I would rather go away or I shall be doing something foolish.’

“And she whispered to me, as if she had put a red-hot iron under my nose:  ’You are not a man.  Now you are going to run away and surrender your place!  Go, then, Bazaine!’

“I felt hurt, but yet I did not move, while the other fellow pulled out a bream:  Oh, I never saw such a large one before, never!  And then my wife began to talk aloud, as if she were thinking, and you can see her tricks.  She said:  ’That is what one might call stolen fish, seeing that we set the bait ourselves.  At any rate, they ought to give us back the money we have spent on bait.’

“Then the fat woman in the cotton dress said in her turn:  ’Do you mean to call us thieves, madame?’ Explanations followed and compliments began to fly.  Oh, Lord! those creatures know some good ones.  They shouted so loud that our two witnesses, who were on the other bank, began to call out by way of a joke:  ’Less noise over there; you will interfere with your husbands’ fishing.’

“The fact is that neither the little man nor I moved any more than if we had been two tree stumps.  We remained there, with our eyes fixed on the water, as if we had heard nothing; but, by Jove! we heard all the same.  ’You are a thief!  You are nothing better than a tramp!  You are a regular jade!’ and so on and so on.  A sailor could not have said more.