Ange Pitou by Alexandre Dumas part one

Pitou bowed, much honored at being called learned, for the first time in his life.

“You can therefore gain a livelihood without that.”

Mademoiselle Billot, while taking the fowls and pigeons out of the panniers, was listening with much interest to the dialogue between Pitou and her father.

“Gain a livelihood,” rejoined Pitou; “that appears a difficult matter to me.”

“What can you do?”

“Do! why, I can lay lime-twigs, and set wires for rabbits. I can imitate, and tolerably well, the notes of birds, can I not, Mademoiselle Catherine?”

“Oh, that is true enough!” she replied. “He can whistle like a blackbird.”

“Yes, but all this is not a trade, a profession,” observed Father Billot.

“And that is what I say, by heaven!”

“You swear,—that is already something.”

“How, did I swear?” said Pitou. “I beg your pardon for having done so, Monsieur Billot.”

“Oh, there is no occasion, none at all,” said the farmer; “it happens also to me sometimes. Eh! thunder of heaven!” cried he, turning to his horse, “will you be quiet, hey? These devils of Perch horses, they must be always neighing and fidgeting about. But now, tell me,” said he, again addressing Pitou, “are you lazy?”

“I do not know. I have never done anything but Latin and Greek, and—”

“And what?”

“And I must admit that I did not take to them very readily.”

“So much the better,” cried Billot; “that proves you are not so stupid as I thought you.”

Pitou opened his eyes to an almost terrific width; it was the first time he had ever heard such an order of things advocated, and which was completely subversive of all the theories which up to that time he had been taught.

“I ask you,” said Billot, “if you are so lazy as to be afraid of fatigue.”

“Oh, with regard to fatigue, that is quite another thing,” replied Pitou; “no, no, no; I could go ten leagues without being fatigued.”

“Good! that’s something, at all events,” rejoined Billot; “by getting a few pounds of flesh more off your bones, you could set up for a runner.”

“A few pounds more!” cried Pitou, looking at his own lanky form, his long arms and his legs, which had much the appearance of stilts; “it seems to me, Monsieur Billot, that I am thin enough as it is.”

“Upon my word, my friend,” cried Billot, laughing very heartily, “you are a perfect treasure.”

It was also the first time that Pitou had been estimated at so high a price, and therefore was he advancing from surprise to surprise.

“Listen to me,” said the farmer; “I ask you whether you are lazy in respect to work?”

“What sort of work?”

“Why, work in general.”

“I do not know, not I; for I have never worked.”

Catherine also began to laugh, but this time Père Billot took the matter in a serious point of view.

“Those rascally priests!” said he, shaking his clenched fist towards the town; “and this is the way they bring up lads, in idleness and uselessness. In what way, I ask you, can this great stripling here be of service to his brethren?”

“Ah! not of much use, certainly; that I know full well,” replied Pitou; “fortunately I have no brothers.”

“By brethren I mean men in general,” observed Billot. “Would you, perchance, insist that all men are not brothers?”

“Oh, that I acknowledge; moreover, it is so said in the gospel.”

“And equals,” continued the farmer.

“Ah! as to that,” said Pitou, “that is quite another affair. If I had been the equal of Monsieur Fortier, he would not so often have thrashed me with his cat-o’-ninetails and his cane; and if I had been the equal of my aunt, she would not have turned me out of doors.”

“I tell you that all men are equal,” rejoined the farmer, “and we will very soon prove it to the tyrants.”

“Tyrannis,” added Pitou.

“And the proof of this is, that I will take you into my house.”

“You will take me into your house, my dear Monsieur Billot?” cried Pitou, amazed. “Is it not to make game of me that you say this?”

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