"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 the night, a resolute determination not to say another word.