"'A mechant chien court lien,' says the proverb, and so say I,"
replied Cadet. "The Golden Dog has barked at us for a long time;
par Dieu! he bites now!--ere long he will gnaw our bones in reality,
as he does in effigy upon that cursed tablet in the Rue Buade."
"Every dog has his day, and the Golden Dog has nearly had his,
Cadet. But what do you advise?" asked Bigot.
"Hang him up with a short rope and a shorter shrift, Bigot! You
have warrant enough if your Court friends are worth half a handful
of chaff."
"But they are not worth half a handful of chaff, Cadet. If I hung
the Bourgeois there would be such a cry raised among the Honnetes
Gens in the Colony, and the whole tribe of Jansenists in France,
that I doubt whether even the power of the Marquise could sustain
me."
Cadet looked quietly truculent. He drew Bigot aside. "There are
more ways than one to choke a dog, Bigot," said he. "You may put a
tight collar outside his throat, or a sweetened roll inside of it.
Some course must be found, and that promptly. We shall, before many
days, have La Corne St.
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