Book account

Clever at all games of cards, a good hunter, and writing a
fine hand, he had at home a lathe, and amused himself by turning napkin
rings, with which he filled up his house, with the jealousy of an artist
and the egotism of a bourgeois.
He went to the small parlour, but the three millers had to be got out
first, and during the whole time necessary for laying the cloth, Binet
remained silent in his place near the stove. Then he shut the door and
took off his cap in his usual way.
"It isn't with saying civil things that he'll wear out his tongue," said
the chemist, as soon as he was along with the landlady.
"He never talks more," she replied. "Last week two travelers in the
cloth line were here--such clever chaps who told such jokes in the
evening, that I fairly cried with laughing; and he stood there like a
dab fish and never said a word."
"Yes," observed the chemist; "no imagination, no sallies, nothing that
makes the society-man."
"Yet they say he has parts," objected the landlady.


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