nd the
plough--a thing which had only the effect of breaking the claws of the
fowls.

He manufactured beer with germander-leaves, and gave it to the
harvesters as cider. The children cried, the women moaned, and the men
raged. They all threatened to go, and Bouvard gave way to them.

However, to convince them of the harmlessness of his beverage, he
swallowed several bottles of it in their presence; then he got cramps,
but concealed his pains under a playful exterior. He even got the
mixture sent to his own residence. He drank some of it with Pecuchet in
the evening, and both of them tried to persuade themselves that it was
good. Besides, it was necessary not to let it go to waste. Bouvard's
colic having got worse, Germaine went for the doctor.

He was a grave-looking man, with a round forehead, and he began by
frightening his patient. He thought the gentleman's attack of cholerine
must be connected with the beer which people were talking about in the
country. He desired to know what it was composed of, and found fault
with it in scientific terms with shruggings of the shoulders. Pecuchet,
who had supplied the recipe for it, was mortified.

In spite of pernicious limings, stinted redressings, and unseasonable
weedings, Bouvard had in front of him, in the following year, a splendid
crop of wheat. He thought of drying it by fermentation, in the Dutch
fashion, on the Clap-Meyer system: that is to say, he got it thrown down
all of a heap and piled up in stacks, which would be overturned as soon
as the damp escaped from them, and then exposed to the open air--after
which Bouvard went off without the least uneasiness.

Next day, while they were at dinner, they heard under the beech trees
the beating of a drum. Germaine ran out to know what was the matter, but
the man was by this time some distance away. Almost at the same moment
the church-bell rang violently.

Bouvard and Pecuchet felt alarmed, and, impatient to learn what had
happened, they rushed bareheaded along the Chavignolles road.

An old woman passed them. She knew nothing about it. They stopped a
little boy, who replied:

"I believe it's a fire!"

And the drum continued beating and the bell ringing more loudly than
before. At length they reached the nearest houses in the village. The
grocer, some yards away, exclaimed:

"The fire is at your place!"

Pecuchet stepped out in double-quick time; and he said to Bouvard, who
trotted by his side with equal spe