you had to live here, like us, with this lunatic? If he wants to knock anything about, — and after all a man must have some pleasure, — why should he not kick these chunks of wood, for which you got a fair price, instead of good Christians like you and me?"
"I don't care how much he beats you," said I. "I had rather have been flogged myself than have had him injure this wood into which I had breathed the breath of life. Do you think a man cares for his bones? It is his thought that is sacred to him, and he who kills that is thrice guilty!" Carried away by my own eloquence, I might have kept on like this for hours, but I saw that Andoche did not grasp a word of it, and indeed seemed to think that I was nearly as cracked as his Master. I turned on the threshold and gave a last look, as one may say, at the field of battle, where lay my poor noseless creations; there was Andoche with his pitying smile, and here was I wasting my breath in cursing at these dummies. It struck me all at once as so deucedly funny, that I just laughed in Andoche's face, and went off in a gust of merriment which seemed to carry away my anger and my pain along with it.
I struck out towards Clamecy, musing as I went, "This time," thought I, "they may as well stick
