operations of our art! But, devil take it! one must make distinctions, and not employ for almost domestic purposes that which is meant for pharmaceutical! It is as if one were to carve a fowl with a scalpel; as if a magistrate—”
“Now be calm,” said Madame Homais.
And Athalie, pulling at his coat, cried “Papa! papa!”
“No, let me alone,” went on the druggist, “let me alone, hang it! My word! One might as well set up for a grocer. That’s it! go it! respect nothing! break, smash, let loose the leeches, burn the mallow-paste, pickle the gherkins in the window jars, tear up the bandages!”
“I thought you had—” said Emma.
“Presently! Do you know to what you exposed yourself? Didn’t you see anything in the corner, on the left, on the third shelf? Speak, answer, articulate something.”
“I—don’t—know,” stammered the young fellow.
“Ah! you don’t know! Well, then, I do know! You saw a bottle of blue glass, sealed with yellow wax, that contains a white powder, on which I have even written ‘Dangerous!’ And do you know what is in it? Arsenic! And you go and touch it! You take a pan that was next to it!”
“Next to it!” cried Madame Homais, clasping her hands. “Arsenic! You might have poisoned us all.”
And the children began howling as if they already had frightful pains in their entrails.
“Or poison a patient!” continued the druggist. “Do you want to see me in the prisoner’s dock with criminals, in a court of justice? To see me