She was as intelligent as she was virtuous and had
nothing to do with her frailer sisters, so the Machine-Fixer informed us
with a quickly passing flash of joy. Which sisters (his little forehead
knotted itself and his big bushy eyebrows plunged together wrathfully)
were wicked and indecent and utterly despicable disgraces to their
sex--and this relentless Joseph fiercely and jerkily related how only the
day before he had repulsed the painfully obvious solicitations of a
Madame Potiphar by turning his back, like a good Christian, upon
temptation and marching out of the room, broom tightly clutched in
virtuous hand.
"_M'sieu Jean_" (meaning myself) "_savez-vous_"--with a terrific gesture
which consisted in snapping his thumbnail between his teeth--"_CA PUE!_"
Then he added: "And what would my wife say to me if I came home to her
and presented her with that which this creature had presented to me? They
are animals," cried the little Machine-Fixer; "all they want is a man.
They don't care who he is; they want a man. But they won't get me!" And
he warned us to beware.
Especially interesting, not to say valuable, was the Machine-Fixer's
testimony concerning the more or less regular "inspections" (which were
held by the very same doctor who had "examined" me in the course of my
first day at La Ferte) for _les femmes_; presumably in the interest of
public safety.
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