en more
inhuman in sound. What in particular aroused this arid mirth probably he
himself did not know. Maybe it was a native cruelty which had a sort
of sardonic pleasure in the miseries of the world. Or was it only the
perception, sometimes given to the dullest mind, of the futility of
goodness, the futility of all? This perhaps, since the apprentice shared
with Dormy Jamais his rooms at the top of the Cohue Royale; and there
must have been some natural bond of kindness between the blank, sardonic
undertaker's apprentice and the poor beganne, who now officially rang
the bell for the meetings of the Royal Court.

The dry cackle of the apprentice as he looked after Guida roused a
mockery of indignation in the Master. "Sacre matin, a back-hander on the
jaw'd do you good, slubberdegullion--you! Ah, get go scrub the coffin
blacking from your jowl!" he rasped out with furious contempt.

The apprentice seemed not to hear, but kept on looking after Guida, a
pitiless leer on his face. "Dame, lucky for her the Sieur died before
he had chance to change his will. She'd have got ni fiche ni bran from
him."

"Support d'en haut, if you don't stop that I'll give you a coffin before
your time, keg of nails--you. Sorrow and prayer at the throne of grace
that she may have a contrite heart"--he clutched the funeral bill
tighter in his fingers--"is what we must feel for her. The day the Sieur
died and it all came out, I wept. Bedtime come I had to sop my eyes with
elder-water. The day o' the burial mine eyes were so sore a-draining I
had to put a rotten sweet apple on 'em over-night--me."

"Ah bah, she doesn't need rosemary wash for her hair!" said the
apprentice admiringly, looking down the street after Guida as she turned
into the Rue d'Egypte.

Perhaps it was a momentary sympathy for beauty in distress which made
the Master say, as he backed from the doorway with stealthy step:

"Gatd'en'ale, 'tis well she has enough to live on, and to provide for
what's to come!"

But if it was a note of humanity in the voice it passed quickly, for
presently, as he examined the bill for the funeral of the Sieur de
Mauprat, he said shrilly:

"Achocre, you've left out the extra satin for his pillow--you."

"There wasn't any extra satin," drawled the apprentice.

With a snarl the Master of Burials seized a pen and wrote in the
account:

Item: To extra satin for pillow, three livres.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Guida's once blithe, rose-coloure