Gorenflot remained stupefied.

“Adieu,” said Chicot.

“Oh! do not go.”

“My journey will not wait.”

“You travel?”

“I have a mission.”

“From whom?”

“From the king.”

“A mission from the king! then you have seen him again?”

“Certainly.”

“And how did he receive you?”

“With enthusiasm; he has a memory, king as he is.”

“A mission from the king!” stammered Gorenflot.

“Adieu,” repeated Chicot.

Gorenflot rose, and seized him by the hand.  “Come! let us explain ourselves,” said he.

“On what?”

“On your susceptibility to-day.”

“I!  I am the same to-day as on all other days.”

“No.”

“A simple mirror of the people I am with.  You laugh, and I laugh; you are rude, so am I.”

“Well!  I confess I was preoccupied.”

“Really!”

“Can you not be indulgent to a man who has so much work on his shoulders?  Governing this priory is like governing a province:  remember, I command two hundred men.”

“Ah! it is too much indeed for a servant of God.”

“Ah! you are ironical, M. Briquet.  Have you lost all your Christian charity?  I think you are envious, really.”

“Envious! of whom?”

“Why, you say to yourself, Dom Modeste Gorenflot is rising—­he is on the ascending scale.”

“While I am on the descending one, I suppose?”

“It is the fault of your false position, M. Briquet.”

“M.  Gorenflot, do you remember the text, ’He who humbles himself, shall be exalted?’”

“Nonsense!” cried Gorenflot.

“Ah! now he doubts the Holy Writ; the heretic!”

“Heretic, indeed!  But what do you mean, M. Briquet?”

“Nothing, but that I set out on a journey, and that I have come to make you my adieux; so, good-by.”

“You shall not leave me thus.”

“I must.”

“A friend!”

“In grandeur one has no friends.”

“Chicot!”

“I am no longer Chicot; you reproached me with my false position just now.”

“But you must not go without eating; it is not wholesome.”

“Oh! you live too badly here.”

“Badly, here!” murmured the prior, in astonishment.

“I think so.”

“You had to complain of your last dinner here?”

“I should think so.”

“Diable! and of what?”

“The pork cutlets were burned.”

“Oh!”

“The stuffed ears did not crack under your teeth.”

“Ah!”

“The capon was soft.”

“Good heavens!”

“The soup was greasy.”

“Misericorde!”

“And then you have no time to give me.”

“I!”

“You said so, did you not?  It only remains for you to become a liar.”

“Oh!  I can put off my business:  it was only a lady who asks me to see her.”