ertone,--and I am flattered,--"That
Pocard is a man of no education, but he has practical sense. That's a
big idea he's got,--at least if he sees things as I see them."

And I, I am thinking that if I were older or more influential in the
district, perhaps I should be in the Pocard scheme, which is taking
shape, and will be huge.

Meanwhile, Brisbille is scowling. An unconfessable disquiet is
accumulating in his bosom. All this gathering is detaining him at
home, and he is tormented by the desire for drink. He cannot conceal
his vinous longing, and squints darkly at the assembly. On a week day
at this hour he would already have begun to slake his thirst. He is
parched, he burns, he drags himself from group to group. The wait is
longer than he can stand.

Suddenly every one looks out to the street through the still open door.

A carriage is making its way towards the church; it has a green body
and silver lamps. The old coachman, whose great glove sways the
slender scepter of a whip, is so adorned with overlapping capes that he
suggests several men on the top of each other. The black horse is
prancing.

"He shines like a piano," says Benoit.

The Baroness is in the carriage. The blinds are drawn, so she cannot
be seen, but every one salutes the carriage.

"All slaves!" mumbles Brisbille. "Look at yourselves now, just look!
All the lot of you, as soon as a rich old woman goes by, there you are,
poking your noses into the ground, showing your bald heads, and growing
humpbacked."

"She does good," protests one of the gathering.

"Good? Ah, yes, indeed!" gurgles the evil man, writhing as though in
the grip of some one; "I call it ostentation--that's what _I_ call it."

Shoulders are shrugged, and Monsieur Joseph Boneas, always
self-controlled, smiles.

Encouraged by that smile, I say, "There have always been rich people,
and there must be."

"Of course," trumpets Crillon, "that's one of the established thoughts
that you find in your head when you fish for 'em. But mark what I
says,--there's some that dies of envy. I'm _not_ one of them that dies
of envy."

Monsieur Mielvaque has put his hat back on his petrified head and gone
to the door. Monsieur Joseph Boneas, also, turns his back and goes
away.

All at once Crillon cries, "There's Petrarque!" and darts outside on
the track of a big body, which, having seen him, opens its long pair of
compasses and escapes obliquely.

"And to think," say