"Why don't you put some smart-weed in their bed? The dirty creatures! Oh! I would give you a package of it for the purpose. That's an idea!"
Then:
"By the way, you know? Kléber? my little ferret?"
"Yes. Well?"
"Well, I ate him. Alas! alas!"
"He was not very good, was he?"
"Alas! he tasted like bad rabbit."
And that was all the funeral sermon that the poor animal got.
The captain tells me also that a week or two ago he caught a hedge-hog under a wood-pile. He is engaged in taming him. He calls him Bourbaki. Ah! that's an idea! An intelligent, comical, extraordinary beast that eats everything!
"Yes, indeed!" he exclaims. "In the same day this confounded hedge-hog has eaten beefsteak, mutton stew, salt bacon, gruyère cheese, and preserves. He is astonishing. It is impossible to satisfy him. He is like me; he eats everything!"
Just then the little domestic passes the path, with a wheelbarrow full of stones, old sardine-boxes, and a heap of dếbris, which he is carrying to the refuse-heap.
"Come here!" calls the captain.
And, as, in answer to his question, I tell him that Monsieur has gone hunting, that Madame has
