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‘I’m hired.’
‘Ah, the devil!’
‘I owe my fishwife day to the prefecture.’
‘That’s true.’
‘If I leave the cart, the first inspector who gets his eye on
me will arrest me. You know that well enough.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘I’m bought by the government for to-day.’
‘All the same, that old fellow bothers me.’
‘Do the old fellows bother you? But you’re not a young
g irl.’
‘He’s in the first carriage.’
‘Wel l? ’
‘In the bride’s trap.’
‘What then?’
‘So he is the father.’
‘What concern is that of mine?’
‘I tell you that he’s the father.’
‘As if he were the only father.’
‘Listen.’
‘What?’
‘I can’t go out otherwise than masked. Here I’m con-
cealed, no one knows that I’m here. But to-morrow, there
will be no more maskers. It’s Ash Wednesday. I run the risk
of being nabbed. I must sneak back into my hole. But you
are free.’
‘Not particularly.’
‘More than I am, at any rate.’
‘Well, what of that?’