ustomers, one of whom was a priest and the other our friend Tabary.
The idiotic Tabary became mighty confidential as to his past life.
Pierre Marchand, who was an acquaintance of Guillaume Coiffier's and had
sympathised with him over his loss, pricked up his ears at the mention
of picklocks, and led on the transcriber of improper romances from one
thing to another, until they were fast friends. For picklocks the Prior
of Paray professed a keen curiosity; but Tabary, upon some late alarm,
had thrown all his into the Seine. Let that be no difficulty, however,
for was there not little Thibault, who could make them of all shapes and
sizes, and to whom Tabary, smelling an accomplice, would be only too
glad to introduce his new acquaintance? On the morrow, accordingly, they
met; and Tabary, after having first wet his whistle at the Prior's
expense, led him to Notre Dame and presented him to four or five "young
companions," who were keeping sanctuary in the church. They were all
clerks, recently escaped, like Tabary himself, from the episcopal
prisons. Among these we may notice Thibault, the operator, a little
fellow of twenty-six, wearing long hair behind. The Prior expressed,
through Tabary, his anxiety to become their accomplice and altogether
such as they were (_de leur sorte et de leurs complices_). Mighty polite
they showed themselves, and made him many fine speeches in return. But
for all that, perhaps because they had longer heads than Tabary, perhaps
because it is less easy to wheedle men in a body, they kept obstinately
to generalities and gave him no information as to their exploits, past,
present, or to come. I suppose Tabary groaned under this reserve; for no
sooner were he and the Prior out of the church than he fairly emptied
his heart to him, gave him full details of many hanging matters in the
past, and explained the future intentions of the band. The scheme of the
hour was to rob another Augustine monk, Robert de la Porte, and in this
the Prior agreed to take a hand with simulated greed. Thus, in the
course of two days, he had turned this wineskin of a Tabary inside out.
For a while longer the farce was carried on; the Prior was introduced to
Petit-Jehan, whom he describes as a little, very smart man of thirty,
with a black beard and a short jacket; an appointment was made and
broken in the de la Porte affair; Tabary had some breakfast at the
Prior's charge and leaked out more secrets under the influence of wine