The Jackass of Vanvres
became apparent. Neddy reared, and falling on the old lady, bit her in the arm.
The brayings of the animals and the cries of the lady attracted a crowd, and the combatants were parted. The washerwoman's ass was consigned, with back-turned ears and palpitating sides, to confinement in a stable. Madame Leclerc retired to her apartment exhausted from her battle, and fainted, with feminine dexterity, into the extended arms of monsieur the florist, her husband, and monsieur the deputy florist, his assistant. By slow degrees the lady was brought round, by means of feathers burned under her nose, and a drop of cordial distilled down her throat. And where was the she-ass, the cause of all this mischief? She had been turned out into a clover-field. Such is the way of the world.
Next day the gardener's wife sent notice to the shop of M. Nepveux that "If any one had lost an ass he would find it at the house of a floral gardener, Faubourg S. Marceau, near the Gobelins."
Jacques Ferron, husband of the lady who had gone a-marketing on Neddy, had spent the night, as we learn from his express declaration in Court, on the borders of insanity. Not a wink of sleep visited his eyes during the hours of darkness, and the dawn broke upon him tossing feverishly on his pillow, with all the bedclothes in a heap upon the floor.
The news of his Neddy's whereabouts being discovered, restored his spirits to equanimity. He
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