"You are an all-round man, and I am going to reward you.

From this day I shall speak to you as I do to my family." Desnoyers did not know just what this familiar talk might amount to, for his employer was so peculiar.

Certain personal favors, nevertheless, immediately began to improve his position.

He was no longer allowed to eat in the administration building, the proprietor insisting imperiously that henceforth Desnoyers should sit at his own table, and thus he was admitted into the intimate life of the Madariaga family.
The wife was always silent when her husband was present.

She was used to rising in the middle of the night in order to oversee the breakfasts of the peons, the distribution of biscuit, and the boiling of the great black kettles of coffee or shrub tea.