M. de Cambremer, “what it is to meet with a scholar. Here have I been shooting for fifteen years in the forest of Chantepie, and I’ve never even thought of what the name meant.” Mme. de Cambremer cast a stern glance at her husband; she did not like him to humble himself thus before Brichot. She was even more annoyed when, at every “ready-made” expression that Cancan employed, Cottard, who knew the ins and outs of them all, having himself laboriously acquired them, pointed out to the Marquis, who admitted his stupidity, that they meant nothing. “Why ‘stupid as a cabbage?’ Do you suppose cabbages are stupider than anything else? You say: ‘repeat the same thing thirty-six times.’ Why thirty-six? Why do you say: ‘sleep like a top?’ Why ‘Thunder of Brest?’ Why ‘play four hundred tricks?’ ” But at this, the defence of M. de Cambremer was taken up by Brichot who explained the origin of each of these expressions. But Mme.