for a lot in the eyes of our people, I am willing to
put my trust in our friends — for that matter in all
who have had dealings with me. Am I, Jouse Benedit,
to shake in my shoes because some mad upstart
arrives from nowhere with yarns about the growth of
a town which has not grown one inch in two hundred
years? We shall next be hearing that the bells of
Saint Loup have jumped out of their belfry and run
off to Paris; that the good saint himself has hopped
down from his niche and is drinking a petit verre at
la Tarasque — so progressive, so modern have we
become with our furniture emporiums and our grand
summer season! Ah, no Marioun; do not look so
pensive, you shall eat bouillabaisse for many a day —
yes, the bouillabaisse blanche shall you eat, and
chicken. Never fear, Marioun, but that Jouse will
provide, as he always has done, for his wife and
children. Your Jouse believes in the good sense of
his clients, and his clients will continue to believe in
your Jouse. And now kiss me, my wife, and you also,
my sons; then let us go happily up to our beds and
dream of that cuckoo-clock which I shall buy in order
to give a little pleasure to Anfos.5 So saying he gave
them each a rough hug, kissed them each on both
cheeks, and then took his wife's arm: 'Come, my
dear, or I shall not get up in the morning/

And indeed he did suddenly feel very tired, after
this, for him, long and eloquent speech which had set
him perspiring from head to foot. But that night he
slept not one whit the less soundly because of the
advent of Anatole Kahn who was going to provide all
things for the household.

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