“You see,” she added to her husband, “I understood that.”

They were both much interested by the story of my misadventures.

“In the morning,” said the husband, “I will make you something better than your cane. Such a beast as that feels nothing; it is in the proverb⁠— dur comme un âne ; you might beat her insensible with a cudgel, and yet you would arrive nowhere.”

Something better! I little knew what he was offering.