cretly with the Jew about
important matters; they said that the Monk was smuggling goods, but this
was a slander unworthy of belief.

Leaning on the table, Robak was discoursing in a low voice; a throng of
gentry surrounded him and pricked up their ears, and bent down their noses
to the Monk's snuffbox. Each took a pinch, and the gentlemen sneezed like
mortars.

"Reverendissime," said Skoluba with a sneeze, "that is fine tobacco, it
goes way up to your topknot. Never since I have worn a nose"--here he
stroked his long nose--"have I met its like"--here he sneezed a second time.
"It is real Bernardine, doubtless made in Kowno, a city famous throughout
the world for tobacco and mead. I was there in----"

"To the health of you all, my noble gentlemen!"

Robak interrupted him. "As for the tobacco--hm--it comes from farther off
than my friend Skoluba thinks; it comes from Jasna Gora, the Bright
Mountain; the Paulist Brethren prepare such tobacco in the city of
Czenstochowa,76 where stands the image, famed for so many miracles, of Our
Lady the Virgin, Queen of the Crown of Poland: she is likewise still
called Duchess of Lithuania! She still watches over her royal crown, but
in the Duchy of Lithuania the schism77 is now established!"

"From Czenstochowa?" said Wilbik. "I confessed myself there when I went on
a pilgrimage thirty years ago. Is it true that the French are now visiting
the city, and that they are going to tear down the church and seize the
treasury--for this is all printed in the _Lithuanian Courier?_"

"No, it is not true," said the Bernardine. "His Majesty the Emperor
Napoleon is a most exemplary Catholic; the Pope himself anointed him, and
they live in harmony, and spread the faith among the French people, which
has become a trifle corrupted. To be sure they have contributed much
silver from Czenstochowa to the national treasury, for the Fatherland, for
Poland, as the Lord God himself bids; his altars are always the treasury
of the Fatherland. Why, in the Duchy of Warsaw we have a Polish army of a
hundred thousand, perhaps soon there will be more. And who will pay that
army? Will it be you Lithuanians? You are now giving your pennies only for
the Muscovite coffers."

"The devil we are!" cried Wilbik; "they take them from us by force."

"O, my dear sir," a peasant spoke up humbly, bowing to the Monk and
scratching his head, "for the gentry it is only half bad, but they skin
_us_ like linden bark."

"You