Jasmin uttered a joyful exclamation, and said:
“What! really, monsieur? And without taking the monkey?”
“Oh! I forbid you above all things to take anything whatever from him.”
And Chérubin told his old servant what had happened.
“You see, monsieur,” said Jasmin, “that Poterne is an outrageous swindler--I was sure of it. His so-called Indian preserves--I gave ‘em to Mademoiselle Turlurette to taste; they gave her a very bad stomach ache, and she’s been out of order ever since. I’m very much afraid, monsieur, that everything you have bought of that Poterne is like your watch!--And this Monsieur Daréna whose man of business he is--hum!”
“Daréna was even more furious than I with that man; he swore that he’d thrash him. He was deceived too; it isn’t his fault.”
“All the same, my dear master, I very much prefer your other friend, Monsieur de Monfréville. Ah! such a difference! he doesn’t borrow your tailor; he doesn’t induce you to buy things; he doesn’t let his steward loose on you.”
Chérubin smiled at Jasmin’s reflections, but it did not enter his mind that Daréna could be a confederate in his agent’s wrongdoing. His heart was too frank, too trustful, to suspect cunning and perfidy, and he would have been unable to believe in Monsieur Poterne’s shameless rascality had it been less abundantly demonstrated to him.
As for Monsieur Gérondif, who passed a large part of his time in sleep, and another large part at the table, and who had adopted the habit of reading Voltaire or Racine to Mademoiselle Turlurette of an evening, telling her that he had composed the lines that morning, when he learned what Monsieur Poterne had done, he exclaimed:
“That man never read _Deuteronomy_, where it says: _Non furtum facies_; or else he mistranslated it.”
A few days after this adventure, Monfréville, returning from the country, came at once to see Chérubin. When he spied the pack of hounds, the parrots, the turtle, the canes, the gothic vases, and all the alleged rare objects with which his young friend’s house was filled to overflowing, he uttered an exclamation which was not of delight, and said to Chérubin:
“Mon Dieu! what on earth induced you to buy all this stuff?”
“They are all bargains. I was told that they were very fine.”