“I am beginning to repent terribly of having taken you up! I should certainly have done better to have left you to rot in your poverty and the dirt in which you were born. Oh, you’ll never be fit for anything but to herd animals with horns! You have no aptitude for science! You hardly know how to stick on a label! And there you are, dwelling with me snug as a parson, living in clover, taking your ease!”

But Emma, turning to Madame Homais, “I was told to come here⁠—”

“Oh, dear me!” interrupted the good woman, with a sad air, “how am I to tell you? It is a misfortune!”

She could not finish, the druggist was thundering⁠—“Empty it! Clean it! Take it back! Be quick!”

And seizing Justin by the collar of his blouse, he shook a book out of his pocket. The lad stooped, but Homais was the quicker, and, having picked up the volume, contemplated it with staring eyes and open mouth.