hat the pharmacopolists and the master physicians
would insist upon stoning you if they were here. So you deny the
influence of philtres upon the blood, and unguents on the skin! You deny
that eternal pharmacy of flowers and metals, which is called the world,
made expressly for that eternal invalid called man!"

"I deny," said Dom Claude coldly, "neither pharmacy nor the invalid. I
reject the physician."

"Then it is not true," resumed Coictier hotly, "that gout is an internal
eruption; that a wound caused by artillery is to be cured by the
application of a young mouse roasted; that young blood, properly
injected, restores youth to aged veins; it is not true that two and two
make four, and that emprostathonos follows opistathonos."

The archdeacon replied without perturbation: "There are certain things
of which I think in a certain fashion."

Coictier became crimson with anger.

"There, there, my good Coictier, let us not get angry," said Gossip
Tourangeau. "Monsieur the archdeacon is our friend."

Coictier calmed down, muttering in a low tone,--

"After all, he's mad."

"_Pasque-dieu_, Master Claude," resumed Gossip Tourangeau, after a
silence, "You embarrass me greatly. I had two things to consult you
upon, one touching my health and the other touching my star."

"Monsieur," returned the archdeacon, "if that be your motive, you
would have done as well not to put yourself out of breath climbing my
staircase. I do not believe in Medicine. I do not believe in Astrology."

"Indeed!" said the man, with surprise.

Coictier gave a forced laugh.

"You see that he is mad," he said, in a low tone, to Gossip Tourangeau.
"He does not believe in astrology."

"The idea of imagining," pursued Dom Claude, "that every ray of a star
is a thread which is fastened to the head of a man!"

"And what then, do you believe in?" exclaimed Gossip Tourangeau.

The archdeacon hesitated for a moment, then he allowed a gloomy smile to
escape, which seemed to give the lie to his response: "_Credo in Deum_."

"_Dominum nostrum_," added Gossip Tourangeau, making the sign of the
cross.

"Amen," said Coictier.

"Reverend master," resumed Tourangeau, "I am charmed in soul to see you
in such a religious frame of mind. But have you reached the point, great
savant as you are, of no longer believing in science?"

"No," said the archdeacon, grasping the arm of Gossip Tourangeau, and
a ray of enthusiasm lighted up his gloomy eyes, "no, I