"Well! speak then."

"It is a secret."

"So much the more reason for telling it."

"Your word and honor that you won't mention it?"

"On the heads of our children, we give it."

"And besides, let us remember what the great king Louis XIV. majestically said to the Doge of Venice before his a.s.sembled court:

"'When a secret's told a clerk, Its exposure he'll not burk!'"

"Good! there is Chalamel with his proverbs!"

"I demand the head of Chalamel!"

"Proverbs are the wisdom of nations; it is on that account I require your secret."

"Come, none of your nonsense. I tell you the head clerk made me a promise to speak of it to no one."

"Yes; but he did not say that you should not tell it to every one?"

"It shall not go out of the office. Go on."

"He is dying with desire to tell us the secret."

"Well! the governor is about selling his notary's business. At this present moment, perhaps, it is done."

"Nonsense!"

"Here is news!"

"Let us see, without charge, who charges himself with the charge which he discharges?"

"Tush! how insupportable Chalamel is with his riddles."

"Do you think I know to whom he sells it?"

"If he sells it, it is because, perhaps, he wishes to come out, give b.a.l.l.s, routs, in the gay world. After all, there is something in it."

"I think so, indeed! The head clerk spoke of more than a million, including the value of the business."

"More than a million!"

"It is said that he has been gambling in stocks secretly with Commandant Robert, and that he has made much money."

"Not to speak of his living like a curmudgeon."

"But these misers, when once they begin to spend money, become as prodigal as they were once mean."

"Well, I agree with Chalamel; I think that now the governor is coming out."

"And he would be most stupendously in the wrong not to bury himself in voluptuousness, and not to plunge into the delights of Golconda, if he has the means; for, as the misty Ossian says, in the grotto of Fingal,

"'All-Ariel is it, yet not-arial, too, That he should still be right, Who roseate tapestry has in open view, And of his gold makes light.'"

"I demand the head of Chalamel!"

"It is absurd!"

"Yes, and the governor looks very much like a man who thinks of amusing himself. He has a face that might cause the devil to appear on earth."

"And then the cure, who boasts of his charity!"

"Well-ordered charity begins at home."

"You do not know your ten commandments, heathen! If the governor asks from himself the alms of great pleasures, it is his duty to grant them."

"What astonishes me is, that this intimate friend, who seems to have dropped from the clouds, never leaves him."

"Not to mention his ugly face."

"He is as red as a carrot."

"I am rather inclined to believe that this intruder is the fruit of a first false step which M. Ferrand has committed in the springtime of life, for, as the Eagle of Meaux said concerning the taking of the veil by the tender La Valliere,

"'Young or old, whiche'er you love, Crows may have an offspring dove!'"

"I demand the head of Chalamel!"

"In truth, with him it is impossible to talk reason a moment."

"What stupidity! To say that this stranger is the son of the governor, when he is the oldest, as is easy to be seen--"

"Well, what of that?"

"How? what of that? The son older than the father?"

"It is very plain; in that case, the intruder must have made the false step, and be the father of M. Ferrand, intead of being his son."

"I demand the head of Chalamel!"

"Do not listen to him; you know, when once he is in the way of saying stupid things, there is no end to it."

"What is certain is, that this intruder has a bad face, and does not leave M. Ferrand for a moment."

"He is always with him in his cabinet; they eat together; one does not move without the other."