r asked.

"Because I choose you to," the woman replied. "I have been living with
you set of old men for a long time, so now I want to have a young one;
there he is, so you must give him a vest, and keep him here, or I shall
throw you up. You may take it or leave it, as you like. Do you
understand me?"

The eighteen looked at each other open-mouthed, and good Daddy La
Bretagne scratched his head, and then said:

"What she asks is quite right, and we must give way," he replied.

Then they explained themselves, and came to an understanding. The poor
devil did not come like a conqueror, for he was a wretched clown who had
just been released from prison, where he had undergone three years' hard
labor for an attempted outrage on a girl, but, with one exception, the
best fellow in the world, so the people declared.

"And something nice for me," the trollop added, "for I can assure you
that I mean him to reward me for anything I may do for him."

From that time the household of eighteen persons consisted of nineteen,
and at first all went well. The clown was very humble, and tried not to
be burdensome to them. Fed, clothed and supplied with tobacco, he tried
not to be too exacting in the other matter, and if needful, he would
have hauled like the others, but the woman would not allow it.

"You shall not fatigue yourself, my little man," she said. "You must
reserve yourself entirely for me."

And he did as she wished.

And soon, the eighteen, who had never been jealous of each other, grew
jealous of the favored lover. Some tried to pick a quarrel with him. He
resisted. The best fellow in the world, no doubt, but he was not going
to be taken for a mussel shut up in its shell, for all that. Let them
call him as lazy as a priest if they liked; he did not mind that, but
when they put hairs into his coffee, armsful of rushes among his
wreckage, and filth into his soup, they had better look out!

"None of that, all the lot of you, or you will see what I can do," he
used to say.

They repeated the practical jokes, however, and he thrashed them. He did
not try to find out who the culprits were, but attacked the first one he
met, so much the worse for him. With a kick from his wooden clog (it was
his specialty) he smashed their noses into a pulp, and having thus
acquired the knowledge of his strength, and urged on by his trollop, he
soon became a tyrant. The eighteen felt that they were slaves, and their
former paradise wher