No, for as small as they are, they must
look and talk as big as ever. They can only afford one servant, and
I don't believe they pay her; but they must be attended on just as
obsequious as when they had a dozen. And this is fatal to all us little
people that have the misfortune to be connected with them."
"Why, how are you connected with them?"
"By the tie of affection."
"I thought you hated them."
"Of course I do; but I have the ill-luck to love Jacintha, and she loves
these aristocrats, and makes me do little odd jobs for them." And at
this Dard's eyes suddenly glared with horror.
"Well, what of that?" asked Riviere.
"What of it, citizen, what? you do not know the fatal meaning of those
accursed words?"
"Why, I never heard of a man's back being broken by little odd jobs."
"Perhaps not his back, citizen, but his heart? if little odd jobs will
not break that, why nothing will. Torn from place to place, and from
trouble to trouble; as soon as one tiresome thing begins to go a bit
smooth, off to a fresh plague, in-doors work when it is dry, out-a-doors
when it snows; and then all bustle; no taking one's work quietly, the
only way it agrees with a fellow.
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