This combination of disreputable
signs was guarded by a pair of eyes with yellow circles round the
pupils, like those of a goat, both lascivious and cowardly. No one in
Nemours was more feared nor, in a way, more deferred to than Goupil.
Strong in the claims made for him by his very ugliness, he had the
odious style of wit peculiar to men who allow themselves all license,
and he used it to gratify the bitterness of his life-long envy. He
wrote the satirical couplets sung during the carnival, organized
charivaris, and was himself a "little journal" of the gossip of the
town. Dionis, who was clever and insincere, and for that reason timid,
kept Goupil as much through fear as for his keen mind and thorough
knowledge of all the interests of the town. But the master so
distrusted his clerk that he himself kept the accounts, refused to let
him live in his house, held him at arm's length, and never confided
any secret or delicate affair to his keeping. In return the clerk
fawned upon the notary, hiding his resentment at this conduct, and
watching Madame Dionis in the hope that he might get his revenge
there.
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