e with the agile quickness of a
wagtail.

"So, my good brother, you refuse me a sou parisis, wherewith to buy a
crust at a baker's shop?"

"_Qui non laborat, non manducet_."

At this response of the inflexible archdeacon, Jehan hid his head in
his hands, like a woman sobbing, and exclaimed with an expression of
despair: "_Orororororoi_."

"What is the meaning of this, sir?" demanded Claude, surprised at this
freak.

"What indeed!" said the scholar; and he lifted to Claude his impudent
eyes into which he had just thrust his fists in order to communicate to
them the redness of tears; "'tis Greek! 'tis an anapaest of AEschylus
which expresses grief perfectly."

And here he burst into a laugh so droll and violent that it made the
archdeacon smile. It was Claude's fault, in fact: why had he so spoiled
that child?

"Oh! good Brother Claude," resumed Jehan, emboldened by this smile,
"look at my worn out boots. Is there a cothurnus in the world more
tragic than these boots, whose soles are hanging out their tongues?"

The archdeacon promptly returned to his original severity.

"I will send you some new boots, but no money."

"Only a poor little parisis, brother," continued the suppliant Jehan. "I
will learn Gratian by heart, I will believe firmly in God, I will be
a regular Pythagoras of science and virtue. But one little parisis, in
mercy! Would you have famine bite me with its jaws which are gaping in
front of me, blacker, deeper, and more noisome than a Tartarus or the
nose of a monk?"

Dom Claude shook his wrinkled head: "_Qui non laborat_--"

Jehan did not allow him to finish.

"Well," he exclaimed, "to the devil then! Long live joy! I will live in
the tavern, I will fight, I will break pots and I will go and see the
wenches." And thereupon, he hurled his cap at the wall, and snapped his
fingers like castanets.

The archdeacon surveyed him with a gloomy air.

"Jehan, you have no soul."

"In that case, according to Epicurius, I lack a something made of
another something which has no name."

"Jehan, you must think seriously of amending your ways."

"Oh, come now," cried the student, gazing in turn at his brother and the
alembics on the furnace, "everything is preposterous here, both ideas
and bottles!"

"Jehan, you are on a very slippery downward road. Do you know whither
you are going?"

"To the wine-shop," said Jehan.

"The wine-shop leads to the pillory."

"'Tis as good a lantern as any othe