s from the jail, and the bailiwick of the
Palais, and the rents of all the houses, sheds, stalls, and booths of
the enclosure? 'Tis a fine breast to suck."

"My castellany of Poissy has brought me in nothing this year."

"But your tolls of Triel, of Saint-James, of Saint-Germainen-Laye are
always good."

"Six score livres, and not even Parisian livres at that."

"You have your office of counsellor to the king. That is fixed."

"Yes, brother Claude; but that accursed seigneury of Poligny, which
people make so much noise about, is worth not sixty gold crowns, year
out and year in."

In the compliments which Dom Claude addressed to Jacques Coictier, there
was that sardonical, biting, and covertly mocking accent, and the sad
cruel smile of a superior and unhappy man who toys for a moment, by way
of distraction, with the dense prosperity of a vulgar man. The other did
not perceive it.

"Upon my soul," said Claude at length, pressing his hand, "I am glad to
see you and in such good health."

"Thanks, Master Claude."

"By the way," exclaimed Dom Claude, "how is your royal patient?"

"He payeth not sufficiently his physician," replied the doctor, casting
a side glance at his companion.

"Think you so, Gossip Coictier," said the latter.

These words, uttered in a tone of surprise and reproach, drew upon this
unknown personage the attention of the archdeacon which, to tell the
truth, had not been diverted from him a single moment since the stranger
had set foot across the threshold of his cell. It had even required all
the thousand reasons which he had for handling tenderly Doctor Jacques
Coictier, the all-powerful physician of King Louis XI., to induce him
to receive the latter thus accompanied. Hence, there was nothing very
cordial in his manner when Jacques Coictier said to him,--

"By the way, Dom Claude, I bring you a colleague who has desired to see
you on account of your reputation."

"Monsieur belongs to science?" asked the archdeacon, fixing his piercing
eye upon Coictier's companion. He found beneath the brows of the
stranger a glance no less piercing or less distrustful than his own.

He was, so far as the feeble light of the lamp permitted one to judge,
an old man about sixty years of age and of medium stature, who appeared
somewhat sickly and broken in health. His profile, although of a very
ordinary outline, had something powerful and severe about it; his eyes
sparkled beneath a very deep supercili