He calls himself a rope-maker, and has a walk under the park wall by the gate of Blangy.

If you merely touch his rope he'll entangle you so cleverly that you will want to turn the wheel and make a bit of it yourself; and for that you would have to pay a fee for apprenticeship.

Madame herself was taken in, and gave him twenty francs.

Ah! he is the king of tricks, that old fellow!" The groom's gossip set Blondet thinking of the extreme craftiness and wiliness of the French peasant, of which he had heard a great deal from his father, a judge at Alencon.

Then the satirical meaning hidden beneath Pere Fourchon's apparent guilelessness came back to him, and he owned himself "gulled" by the Burgundian beggar.
"You would never believe, monsieur," said Charles, as they reached the portico at Les Aigues, "how much one is forced to distrust everybody and everything in the country,--especially here, where the general is not much liked--" "Why not ?" "That's more than I know," said Charles, with the stupid air servants assume to shield themselves when they wish not to answer their superiors, which nevertheless gave Blondet a good deal to think of.
"Here you are, truant!" cried the general, coming out on the terrace when he heard the horses.