“Ah! That a merchant, who has large connections, a jurisconsult, a doctor, a chemist, should be thus absentminded, that they should become whimsical or even peevish, I can understand; such cases are cited in history. But at least it is because they are thinking of something. Myself, for example, how often has it happened to me to look on the bureau for my pen to write a label, and to find, after all, that I had put it behind my ear!”

Madame Lefrançois just then went to the door to see if the Hirondelle were not coming. She started. A man dressed in black suddenly came into the kitchen. By the last gleam of the twilight one could see that his face was rubicund and his form athletic.

“What can I do for you, Monsieur le curé?” asked the landlady, as she reached down from the chimney one of the copper candlesticks placed with their candles in a row. “Will you take something? A thimbleful of Cassis? 9 A glass of wine?”