“And what is that over there?” inquired Durtal, perceiving, in a corner, an enormous fragment of rounded metal, like half a gigantic skull-cap.  On it the dust lay thick, and and in the hollow the meshes on meshes of fine silken web, dotted with the black bodies of lurking spiders, were like a fisherman’s hand net weighted with little slugs of lead.

“That?  Ah, monsieur!” and there was fire in Carhaix’s mild eyes, “that is the skull of an old, old bell whose like is not cast these days.  The ring of that bell, monsieur, was like a voice from heaven.”  And suddenly he exploded, “Bells have had their day!—­As I suppose Des Hermies has told you.—­Bell ringing is a lost art.  And why wouldn’t it be?  Look at the men who are doing it nowadays.  Charcoal burners, roofers, masons out of a job, discharged firemen, ready to try their hand at anything for a franc.  There are curates who think nothing of saying, ’Need a man?  Go out in the street and pick up a soldier for ten sous.  He’ll do.’  That’s why you read about accidents like the one that happened lately at Notre Dame, I think.  The fellow didn’t withdraw in time and the bell came down like the blade of a guillotine and whacked his leg right off.

“People will spend thirty thousand francs on an altar baldachin, and ruin themselves for music, and they have to have gas in their churches, and Lord knows what all besides, but when you mention bells they shrug their shoulders.  Do you know, M. Durtal, there are only two men in Paris who can ring chords?  Myself and Pere Michel, and he is not married and his morals are so bad that he can’t be regularly attached to a church.  He can ring music the like of which you never heard, but he, too, is losing interest.  He drinks, and, drunk or sober, goes to work, then he bowls up again and goes to sleep.

“Yes, the bell has had its day.  Why, this very morning, Monsignor made his pastoral visit to this church.  At eight o’clock we sounded his arrival.  The six bells you see down here boomed out melodiously.  But there were sixteen up above, and it was a shame.  Those extras jangled away haphazard.  It was a riot of discord.”

Carhaix ruminated in silence as they descended.  Then, “Ah, monsieur,” he said, his watery eyes fairly bubbling, “the ring of bells, there’s your real sacred music.”

They were now above the main door of the building and they came out into the great covered gallery on which the towers rest.  Carhaix smiled and pointed out a complete peal of miniature bells, installed between two pillars on a plank.  He pulled the cords, and, in ecstasies, his eyes protruding, his moustache bristling, he listened to the frail tinkling of his toy.

And suddenly he relinquished the cords.

“I once had a crazy idea,” he said, “of forming a class here and teaching all the intricacies of the craft, but no one cared to learn a trade which was steadily going out of existence.  Why, you know we don’t even sound for weddings any more, and nobody comes to look at the tower.