After dinner Balt said, "Now, wife, get in a cup of coffee."
"None for me, I thank you," said the geometer.
The tailor's wife was not so ill-mannered as to press the refreshment upon her guest against his will, for she grudged her husband his share of it. She afterward boiled a cup for herself, and toasted a biscuit to eat with it.
When the afternoon church was over, Crescence could not avoid taking a walk with the geometer; but she managed to keep clear of the street and go along the back fences of the gardens. When they approached George's ninepin-alley, she started with fright on seeing Florian standing there in his shirt-sleeves with his back to the road. Throwing a piece of money on the ground, he said, "'Bet you six creutzers I'll make five." Under the pretext of having forgotten something, Crescence turned round quickly, and the geometer had nothing to do but to follow her. On arriving at home, they surprised her mother at her private cup of coffee,--which was unpleasant. They now took the street of the village.
Florian had no other design on this Sunday than to attract attention, in which he succeeded brilliantly. Everybody spoke of him,--of his black velvet roundabout with silver buttons, his free rifleman's vest of red and black stripes, and his other glories. The people of a village, as of a city, are grateful to any one who will furnish them with a subject of conversation. The old butcher, Florian's father, drank in the fame of his son from every mouth, and did his best to keep it at the full. He was still rather a handsome man himself, with a rubicund face and bright gray eyes. He walked about in his shirt-sleeves and carried his handkerchief in the armpit of his waistcoat,--which gave him an air of originality. Whenever he met any one, he drew out his snuff-box and offered a pinch of "doppelmops," saying, "My Florian brought it with him: he's a fine fellow, a'n't he? None like him for twenty miles around. His master would give him his daughter in a minute, but the rapscallion won't have her. His master makes more out of hoofs than three Horb butchers do out of beef: he kills eight calves every day and two or three oxen besides. What would you think," he would generally add, taking off his little frontless cap, formed in the resemblance of a cabbage-leaf, and putting it on again, "if I was to go to Strasbourg and marry the girl? If she must have a tall man, why shouldn't the old one be as good as the young? I won't back out for any one yet a while."