“Everybody will be too many,” murmured the monk of Conils, shaking his head.  “I see that the Penguins want to quarrel.  If we mix ourselves up in their quarrel they will become reconciled at our expense and we shall have to pay the cost of the war.  That is why, if you are guided by me, dear Agaric, you will not engage the Church in this adventure.”

“You know my energy; you know my prudence.  I will compromise nothing. . . .  Dear Cornemuse, I only want from you the funds necessary for us to begin the campaign.”

For a long time Cornemuse refused to bear the expenses of what he thought was a fatal enterprise.  Agaric was in turn pathetic and terrible.  At last, yielding to his prayers and threats, Cornemuse, with banging head and swinging arms, went to the austere cell that concealed his evangelical poverty.  In the whitewashed wall under a branch of blessed box, there was fixed a safe.  He opened it, and with a sigh took out a bundle of bills which, with hesitating hands, he gave to the pious Agaric.

“Do not doubt it, dear Cornemuse,” said the latter, thrusting the papers into the pocket of his overcoat, “this Pyrot affair has been sent us by God for the glory and exaltation of the Church of Penguinia.”

“I pray that you may be right!” sighed the monk of Conils.

And, left alone in his laboratory, he gazed, through his exquisite eyes, with an ineffable sadness at his stoves and his retorts.

VI.  THE SEVEN HUNDRED PYROTISTS

The seven hundred Pyrotists inspired the public with an increasing aversion.  Every day two or three of them were beaten to death in the streets.  One of them was publicly whipped, another thrown into the river, a third tarred and feathered and led through a laughing crowd, a fourth had his nose cut off by a captain of dragoons.  They did not dare to show themselves at their clubs, at tennis, or at the races; they put on a disguise when they went to the Stock Exchange.  In these circumstances the Prince des Boscenos thought it urgent to curb their audacity and repress their insolence.  For this purpose he joined with Count Clena, M. de La Trumelle, Viscount Olive, and M. Bigourd in founding a great anti-Pyrotist association to which citizens in hundreds of thousands, soldiers in companies, regiments, brigades, divisions, and army corps, towns, districts, and provinces, all gave their adhesion.

About this time the Minister of War happening to visit one day his Chief of Staff, saw with surprise that the large room where General Panther worked, which was formerly quite bare, had now along each wall from floor to ceiling in sets of deep pigeon-holes, triple and quadruple rows of paper bundles of every as form and colour.  These sudden and monstrous records had in a few days reached the dimensions of a pile of archives such as it takes centuries to accumulate.

“What is this?” asked the astonished minister.