But Caniveau, who was already peering into Belhomme’s ear to see if he couldn’t discover the beast, shouted: 

“Gosh!  What a mess!  You’ll have to clear that out, old man.  Your rabbit could never get through that; his feet would stick.”

The priest in turn examined the passage and saw that it was too narrow and too congested for him to attempt to expel the animal.  It was the teacher who cleared out this passage by means of a match and a bit of cloth.  Then, in the midst of the general excitement, the priest poured into the passage half a glass of water, which trickled over the face through the hair and down the neck of the patient.  Then the schoolmaster quickly twisted the head round over the bowl, as though he were trying to unscrew it.  A couple of drops dripped into the white bowl.  All the passengers rushed forward.  No insect had come out.

However, Belhomme exclaimed:  “I don’t feel anything any more.”  The priest triumphantly exclaimed:  “Certainly it has been drowned.”  Everybody was happy and got back into the coach.

But hardly had they started when Belhomme began to cry out again.  The bug had aroused itself and had become furious.  He even declared that it had now entered his head and was eating his brain.  He was howling with such contortions that Poirat’s wife, thinking him possessed by the devil, began to cry and to cross herself.  Then, the pain abating a little, the sick man began to tell how it was running round in his ear.  With his finger he imitated the movements of the body, seeming to see it, to follow it with his eyes:  “There is goes up again!  Oh—­oh—­oh—­what torture!”

Caniveau was getting impatient.  “It’s the water that is making the bug angry.  It is probably more accustomed to wine.”

Everybody laughed, and he continued:  “When we get to the Cafe Bourbeux, give it some brandy, and it won’t bother you any more, I wager.”

But Belhomme could contain himself no longer; he began howling as though his soul were being torn from his body.  The priest was obliged to hold his head for him.  They asked Cesaire Horlaville to stop at the nearest house.  It was a farmhouse at the side of the road.  Belhomme was carried into it and laid on the kitchen table in order to repeat the operation.  Caniveau advised mixing brandy and water in order to benumb and perhaps kill the insect.  But the priest preferred vinegar.

They poured the liquid in drop by drop this time, that it might penetrate down to the bottom, and they left it several minutes in the organ that the beast had chosen for its home.

A bowl had once more been brought; Belhomme was turned over bodily by the priest and Caniveau, while the schoolmaster was tapping on the healthy ear in order to empty the other.

Cesaire Horlaville himself, whip in hand, had come in to observe the proceedings.

Suddenly, at the bottom of the bowl appeared a little brown spot, no bigger than a tiny seed.  However, it was moving.  It was a flea!  First there were cries of astonishment and then shouts of laughter.  A flea!  Well, that was a good joke, a mighty good one!  Caniveau was slapping his thigh, Cesaire Horlaville snapped his whip, the priest laughed like a braying donkey, the teacher cackled as though he were sneezing, and the two women were giving little screams of joy, like the clucking of hens.