The witness began to laugh so persistently that a
gendarme was obliged to punch him in the back.
Having quieted down, he resumed:
“In short, Brument exclaimed: ‘Nothing
doing, that is not enough.’ I bawled and
bawled, and bawled again, he punched me, I hit back.
That would have kept on till the Day of judgment,
seeing we were both drunk.
“Then came the gendarmes! They swore at
us, they took us off to prison. I want damages.”
He sat down.
Brument confirmed in every particular the statements
of his accomplice.
The jury, in consternation, retired to deliberate.
At the end of an hour they returned a verdict of acquittal
for the defendants, with some severe strictures on
the dignity of marriage, and establishing the precise
limitations of business transactions.
Brument went home to the domestic roof accompanied
by his wife.
Cornu went back to his business.
Madame de X. to Madame de
L.
Etretat, Friday.
My Dear Aunt:
I am coming to see you without anyone knowing it.
I shall be at Les Fresnes on the 2d of September,
the day before the hunting season opens, as I do not
want to miss it, so that I may tease these gentlemen.
You are too good, aunt, and you will allow them, as
you usually do when there are no strange guests, to
come to table, under pretext of fatigue, without dressing
or shaving for the occasion.
They are delighted, of course, when I am not present.
But I shall be there and will hold a review, like
a general, at dinner time; and, if I find a single
one of them at all careless in dress, no matter how
little, I mean to send them down to the kitchen with
the servants.
The men of to-day have so little consideration for
others and so little good manners that one must be
always severe with them. We live indeed in an
age of vulgarity. When they quarrel, they insult
each other in terms worthy of longshoremen, and, in
our presence, they do not conduct themselves even
as well as our servants. It is at the seaside
that you see this most clearly. They are to be
found there in battalions, and you can judge them
in the lump. Oh! what coarse beings they are!
Just imagine, in a train, a gentleman who looked well,
as I thought at first sight, thanks to his tailor,
carefully took off his boots in order to put on a
pair of old shoes! Another, an old man who was
probably some wealthy upstart (these are the most
ill-bred), while sitting opposite to me, had the delicacy
to place his two feet on the seat quite close to me.
This is a positive fact.
