g along holding up his frock above his
thin and sinewy legs in order to be able to get along all the faster.

This was not very difficult, however, inasmuch as the monk paused every
now and then to glance behind him, as if he was going away with great
difficulty and with feelings of profound regret.

His glance was invariably directed toward the brilliantly-lighted
windows of the hostelry.

Chicot had not gone many steps before he felt sure that he had not been
mistaken in his conjectures.

"Hallo! my little master," he said; "hallo! my little Jacquot; hallo! my
little Clement. Halt!"

And he pronounced this last word in so thoroughly military a tone, that
the monk started at it.

"Who calls me?" inquired the young man rudely, with something rather
antagonistic than cordial in his tone of voice.

"I!" replied Chicot, drawing himself up in front of the monk; "I! don't
you recognize me?"

"Oh! Monsieur Robert Briquet!" exclaimed the monk.

"Myself, my little man. And where are you going like that, so late,
darling child?"

"To the priory, Monsieur Briquet."

"Very good; but where do you come from?"

"I?"

"Of course, little libertine."

The young man started.

"I don't know what you are saying, Monsieur Briquet," he replied; "on
the contrary, I have been sent with a very important commission by Dom
Modeste, who will himself assure you that such is the case, if there be
any occasion for it."

"Gently, gently, my little Saint Jerome; we take fire like a match, it
seems."

"And not without reason, too, when one hears such things said as you
were saying just now."

"Diable! when one sees a frock like yours leaving a tavern at such an
hour--"

"A tavern, I!"

"Oh! of course not; the house you left just now was not the 'Brave
Chevalier,' I suppose? Ah! you see I have caught you!"

"You were right in saying that I left that house, but it was not a
tavern I was leaving."

"What!" said Chicot; "is not the hostelry of the sign of the 'Brave
Chevalier' a tavern?"

"A tavern is a house where people drink, and as I have not been drinking
in that house, that house is not a tavern for me."

"Diable! that is a subtle distinction, and I am very much mistaken if
you will not some day become a very forcible theologian; but, at all
events, if you did not go into that house to drink there, what did you
go there for?"

Clement made no reply, and Chicot could read in his face,
notwithstanding the darkness of