The Pomp of the Lavilettes, Volume 1 by Gilbert Parker
page 42 of 66 (63%)
page 42 of 66 (63%)
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"The devil!" said Lavilette, dropping a fist on the table, and staring at the notary; for he was not present in the afternoon when Castine passed by. "What difference does that make?" snarled Farcinelle. "I'll bet he's got nothing more than what he went away with, and that wasn't a sou markee!" A provoking smile flickered at the corners of Shangois's mouth, and he said, with a dry inflection, as he dipped and redipped his quill pen in the inkhorn: "He has a bear, my friends, which dances very well." Farcinelle guffawed. "St. Mary!" said he, slapping his leg, "we'll have the bear at the wedding, and I'll have that farm of Vanne Castine's. What does he want of a farm? He's got a bear. Come, is it a bargain? Am I to have the mortgage? If you don't stick it in, I'll not let my boy marry your girl, Lavilette. There, now, that's my last word." "'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, nor his wife, nor his maid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his,"' said the notary, abstractedly, drawing the picture of a fat Jew on the paper before him. The irony was lost upon his hearers. Madame Lavilette had been thinking, however, and she saw further than her husband. "It amounts to the same thing," she said. "You see it doesn't go away from Sophie; so let him have it, Louis." |
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