It is his good fortune that she has such sense
in business. When Jean Jacques listens to her, he goes right. She herself
did not want her father to manage the lime-kilns--the old Sebastian
Dolores. She was for him staying at Mirimachi, where he kept the books of
the lumber firm. But no, Jean Jacques said that he could make her happy
by having her father near her, and he would not believe she meant what
she said. He does not understand her; that is the trouble. He knows as
much of women or men as I know of--"
"Of the law--hein?" laughed the great man.
"Monsieur--ah, that is your little joke! I laugh, yes, but I laugh,"
responded the Clerk of the Court a little uncertainly. "Now once when she
told him that the lime-kilns--"
The Judge, who had retraced his steps down the street of the town--it was
little more than a large village, but because it had a court-house and a
marketplace it was called a town--that he might have a good look at
Madame Jean Jacques and her child before he passed them, suddenly said:
"How is it you know so much about it all, Maitre Fille--as to what she
says and of the inner secrets of the household? Ah, ha, my little
Lothario, I have caught you--a bachelor too, with time on his hands, and
the right side of seventy as well! The evidence you have given of a close
knowledge of the household of our Jean Jacques does not have its basis in
hearsay, but in acute personal observation.
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