f Old Blessings-of-Peace!"

"You!"

"Yes, I--wait and see. Get out your tablets and take notes--spread your
elbows, man! Do as I do, and the blessing of Saint Nicholas of Padua be
upon all thieves and rascals--of whom we are two choice specimens!"

"Speak for yourself, Spaniard!" spluttered the other, having
accidentally sucked the wrong end of his pen; "my uncle is not a
cardinal, and as to my father----"

"He sells hanks of yarn, and cheats in the measurement!"

"I dare you to say so, you left-hand prince, you grease-spot on the
cardinal's purple--you----"

"That will do," said the Abbe John calmly; "to-morrow I will give you
thwacks when and where you like. But now listen, mark, learn, and in any
case keep our good Master Anatole from so frequently glancing at that
door. One would think he had the devil shut up within!"

"Impossible--quite impossible; he is loose and exceedingly busy outside
there! Listen to the shots," said Guy, inclining an ear to the window.

_Crack--crack! Bang!_

The windows rattled.

"Hurrah for the People's Duke! Down with the King! Death to the
Huguenots!--to the Barbets!--to the English! Death! Death! Death!"

"Lively down there--I wish we were up and away!" mourned the son of the
ex-provost of the merchants, "but without arms and ammunition, what can
fellows do?"

"As sayeth the Wise Man"--the voice of the Professor of Eloquence began
to quicken into its stride--"'all her main roads are pleasant roads; and
her very by-paths, her _sentiers_, lead to peace!'"

"If we could only get at those pistols and things!" murmured Guy Launay.
"I wager you a groat that the old man is mistaken! Oh, just hearken to
them outside there, will you? Peace is a chafing-dish. War is the great
sport!"

"Down with the King! Bring along those chains for the barricade!
Students to the rescue!"

Then came up to their ears the blithe marching song, the time strongly
marked:

"The Guises are good men, good men,
The Cardinal, and Henry, and Mayenne, Mayenne!
And we'll fight till all be grey--
The Valois at our feet to-day,
And in his grave the Bearnais--
Our chief has come--the Balafre!"

"Keys of Sainted Peter!" moaned Guy Launay, "I cannot stand this. I am
going down, though I have no better weapon than a barrel-stave."

And he hummed, rapping on the inscribed and whittled bench with his
fingers, the refrain of the famous League song:

"For