His humble trade as a botcher does not allow a fixed tariff, and he is all alone as he vindicates the value of his work.

With his fists he hammers the gray-striped mealy cloth on his knees, and the hair, which grows thickly round his big neck, gives him the nape of a wild boar.
"That felt," he complains, "I'll tell you what was the matter with it.
It was rain, heavy rain, that had drowned it.

That felt, I tells you, was only like a dirty handkerchief.

What does _that_ represent--in ebullition of steam, in gumming, and the passage of time ?" Monsieur Justin Pocard is talking to three companions, who, hat in hand, are listening with all their ears.

He is entertaining them in his sonorous language about the great financial and industrial combination which he has planned.