Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Pomp of the Lavilettes, Volume 1 by Gilbert Parker
page 42 of 66 (63%)

"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."

DigitalOcean Referral Badge