No one now came to see them, for Justin had run away to Rouen, where he was a grocer’s assistant, and the druggist’s children saw less and less of the child, Monsieur Homais not caring, seeing the difference of their social position, to continue the intimacy.
The blind man, whom he had not been able to cure with the pomade, had gone back to the hill of Bois-Guillaume, where he told the travellers of the vain attempt of the druggist, to such an extent, that Homais when he went to town hid himself behind the curtains of the “Hirondelle” to avoid meeting him. He detested him, and wishing, in the interests of his own reputation, to get rid of him at all costs, he directed against him a secret battery, that betrayed the depth of his intellect and the baseness of his vanity. Thus, for six conse
