have no desire to do so, and I leave that care to my cook.

--Come, Captain, you admit that this is to vilify a man on rather slender
grounds. There are fagots and fagots, and so there are Cures and Cures.
This one, I assure you, is an excellent fellow.

--It may be so, but as I have no desire to make his acquaintance, I laugh
at his good qualities.

--Everybody is not of your opinion, and it appears that all the women are
distracted about him.

--Another reason why I detest him; women usually place their affections
very badly.

--And he turns the heads of all the girls.

--That is good! Oh, the good Cure. He reminds me of the one at Djidjelly
when I was a non-commissioned officer, the greatest girl-hunter that I have
ever known. The Kabyles used to call him _Bou-Zeb_, which means capable of
the thirteenth labour of Hercules, and they held him in high esteem, but
when he went near their tents they used to make all the women go inside.
Ah! that was a famous Cure! I wish that ours resembled him, and that he
would get a child out of all the girls, and that he would make cuckolds of
all the husbands.

--Why so?

--To teach these idiots to let their wives and their daughters be idle and
dance attendance at the churches, and relate all the details of their
household and their little sins to these bullies, as to their grand-dad.

--I grant there is some danger when the confidant is a handsome bachelor.

--There is no need to be handsome, sir. With the women, the cassock gives
charms to the ugliest. I have known a sweet and lovely creature become mad
after one of these rogues who had a head like a pitchfork. He did with her
what he wished. He made her devout, shrewish, and the worst of whores. Yes,
yes, they say that the red breeches get over the women, but the black gown
bewitches them. Explain that if you can. They want to know what is
underneath that wicked cassock. Something strange, mysterious, monstrous
attracts them. Women love enormities, and besides it must be said,
especially and above all, forbidden fruit.

The Captain had mounted his favourite hobby, I could only let him go on.

--They are vice incarnate, and know how to employ every means to seduce.
Religion, the confessional, the bible, the Mass, Vespers, the New
Testament, all the holy business is an auxiliary for them. For instance,
conceive anything more disgusting than that pardon promised beforehand to
guilty women. Play the whore all your life,