'And suppose I say no — what then?'Jouse enquired.
But this he did only to tease the boy, and Christophe
knew well that his father was teasing.
Thus the day arrived when Christophe appeared
in a very old pair of fisherman's trousers rolled well
up in order to fit his legs and gathered into the waist
by a strap which Elise had managed to find in the
attic. A sail-cloth blouse took the place of his shirt,
the sleeves having been cut to above his elbows, and
he carried a bucket of distemper so pink and so foamy
that he suddenly wanted to eat it. The bucket, in
its turn, must carry a brush of such magnitude that
the distemper flowed over; a downright, broad-
beamed, workmanlike brush with soft thick bristles
and a stout wooden handle. Thus armed he attacked
the sitting room; slap, slap, dip and slap; slap and
dip, dip and slap, while the rosy distemper ran back
from the brush and splashed onto the floor oif his
dripping fingers.
'Santo d'or!5 sighed Elise, cand upstairs in our bed-
room my Goundran works with scarcely less vigour.
The floor boards will soon be far pinker than the
walls, and already there are big daubs of pink on
the bed. God be praised that I thought of covering
the mattress! Ai! las, you men when you wish to be
useful make more mess than a woman would make
in a lifetime. You are careless, you men, as I tell my
own man.'
But her lips were smiling indulgently, and Chris-
tophe must try to swell out his chest at hearing himself
thus coupled with Goundran, and must grin and shrug
his shoulders and spit, then apply his huge brush with
so manly a flourish that a splash of distemper flew
into his eye which he rubbed with a dripping but
diligent finger.
Said Elise, displaying true feminine tact: 'If it will
not disturb your work for a moment, I have a clean