orry for the man. In any case, it was
not his cue to interfere; and Luc was being punished according to his
bringing up and to the standards familiar to him. Medallion had never
refused to speak to him, but he had done nothing more. There was no
reason why he should provoke the enmity of the parish unnecessarily; and
up to this-point Pomfrette had shifted for himself after a fashion, if a
hard fashion.

With a bitter laugh, Pomfrette turned to the little bar.

"Brandy," he said; "brandy, my Bourienne."

The landlord shrugged his shoulder, and looked the other way.

"Brandy," he repeated. Still there was no sign.

There was a wicked look in his face, from which the landlord shrank
back-shrank so far that he carried himself among the others, and stood
there, half frightened, half dumfounded.

Pomfrette pulled out a greasy dollar-bill from his pocket--the last he
owned in the world--and threw it on the counter. Then he reached over,
caught up a brandy-bottle from the shelf, knocked off the neck with a
knife, and, pouring a tumblerful, drank it off at a gasp.

His head came up, his shoulders straightened out, his eyes snapped fire.
He laughed aloud, a sardonic, wild, coarse laugh, and he shivered once
or twice violently, in spite of the brandy he had drunk.

"You won't speak to me, eh? Won't you? Curse you! Pass me on the other
side--so! Look at me. I am the worst man in the world, eh? Judas is
nothing--no! Ack, what are you, to turn your back on me? Listen to me!
You, there, Muroc, with your charcoal face, who was it walk thirty miles
in the dead of winter to bring a doctor to your wife, eh? She die,
but that is no matter--who was it? It was Luc Pomfrette. You, Alphonse
Durien, who was it drag you out of the bog at the Cote Chaudiere? It was
Luc Pomfrette. You, Jacques Baby, who was it that lied for you to the
Protestant girl at Faribeau? Just Luc Pomfrette. You two, Jean and
Nicolas Mariban, who was it lent you a hunderd dollars when you lose all
your money at cards? Ha, ha, ha! Only that beast Luc Pomfrette! Mother
of Heaven, such a beast is he--eh, Limon Rouge?--such a beast that used
to give your Victorine little silver things, and feed her with bread
and sugar and buttermilk pop. Ah, my dear Limon Rouge, how is it all
different now!"

He raised the bottle and drank long from the ragged neck. When he took
it away from his mouth not much more than half remained in the quart
bottle. Blood was dripping upon his