struck himself personally, as well as the terrible fall of the
Emiral of which he was the chief cause. Far from yielding to evil
fortune, he regarded it as but a bird of passage. He was planning new
political designs more audacious than the first.

When his projects were sufficiently ripe he went one day to the Wood of
Conils. A thrush sang in a tree and a little hedgehog crossed the
stony path in front of him with awkward steps. Agaric walked with great
strides, muttering fragments of sentences to himself.

When he reached the door of the laboratory in which, for so many
years, the pious manufacturer bad distilled the golden liqueur of St.
Orberosia, he found the place deserted and the door shut. Having walked
around the building he saw in the backyard the venerable Cornemuse, who,
with his habit pinned up, was climbing a ladder that leant against the
wall.

"Is that you, my dear friend?" said he to him. "What are you doing
there?"

"You can see for yourself," answered the monk of Conils in a feeble
voice, turning a sorrowful look Upon Agaric. "I am going into my house."

The red pupils of his eyes no longer imitated the triumph and brilliance
of the ruby, they flashed mournful and troubled glances. His countenance
had lost its happy fulness. His shining head was no longer pleasant
to the sight; perspiration and inflamed blotches bad altered its
inestimable perfection.

"I don't understand," said Agaric.

"It is easy enough to understand. You see the consequences of your plot.
Although a multitude of laws are directed against me I have managed to
elude the greater number of them. Some, however, have struck me. These
vindictive men have closed my laboratories and my shops, and confiscated
my bottles, my stills, and my retorts. They have put seals on my doors
and now I am compelled to go in through the window. I am barely able to
extract in secret and from time to time the juice of a few plants and
that with an apparatus which the humblest labourer would despise."

"You suffer from the persecution," said Agaric. "It strikes us all."

The monk of Conils passed his hand over his afflicted brow:

"I told you so, Brother Agaric; I told you that your enterprise would
turn against ourselves."

"Our defeat is only momentary," replied Agaric eagerly. "It is due to
purely accidental causes; it results from mere contingencies. Chatillon
was a fool; he has drowned himself in his own ineptitude. Listen to
me, Brother Co