lthful, anyway.

"After mass one Sunday, I shook hands with him at the door--he was
always there for a word before we went--and I says to him, 'Father,
you'll be having the gang breaking into your house first thing you
know.'

"He laughed kind of easy, and says, 'Well, if they come, I hope they'll
be peaceable, for, above all things, I am a man of peace.'

"'And if they're not?' I says.

"And he shrugged his shoulders--that was the French of him from his
father--and says, 'I don't know what I'd do, but I'd do the best I
could.'

"Sure enough, they did break into the Father's house the next night,
three of them, and they got into his room on the second floor, and woke
him up from his sleep, because they couldn't find anything worth
stealing. They stood beside his bed, three hulking brutes they were,
and threatened him with fearful things if he didn't at once get up and
show them the gold and silver plate they believed was in the house. So
he got up kinder quietly, and put some of his clothes on, and all the
while they were saying very soft-like awful things about the church,
and Father LeRoy wasn't saying anything, but all of a sudden he turns
the key easily in the door, locking it on the inside, you see, and
slips the key in his pocket. Then he looks at them, and they're very
close to him and very fierce, and one of 'em says, 'We smashed old
Tom's head'--that was the Father's servant--'just because he opened his
mouth to yell, and now we'll pound yours to a pulp,' and the next
minute that fellow went down with a broken jawbone and a stomach that
never got well again, I guess. The others threw themselves upon the
Father, and a few minutes afterwards the whole neighbourhood was
awakened by the yells and shoutings from the house. People and police
were soon there: they broke into the house and burst into the Father's
room, and there he was, a little pale and breathing heavy, and the
three men piled on the floor in a heap, moaning and groaning, and all
covered with blood. I was one of them that rushed in with the police,
and when things got quietened down a bit I found old Tom in the kitchen
with a pretty sore head, but not in danger. Well, one of the police
inspectors and me stayed the rest of the night with the Father, though
he didn't want us to.

"The inspector shook the Father's hand about a million times, and he
says to him, 'Sir,' he says, 'what did you think when you locked that
door?'

"And Father