"At every other word you mean; every obscene or blasphemous one."
"Exaggerator, go to! Why, at the very last of these dungeons, I found the poor travellers sitting all chilled and mute round one shaveling, like rogues awaiting their turn to be hanged: so to cheer them up, I did but cry out, 'Courage, tout le monde, le dia—'"
"Connu! what befell?"
"Marry, this. 'Blaspheme not!' quo' the bourreau. 'Plait-il,' say I. Doesn't he wheel and wyte on me in a sort of Alsatian French, turning all the 'P's' into 'B's.' I had much ado not to laugh in his face."
"Being thyself unable to speak ten words of his language without a fault."
"Well, all the world ought to speak French. What avail so many jargons except to put a frontier atwixt men's hearts?"
"But what said he."
"What signifies it what a fool says?"
"Oh, not all the words of a fool are folly: or I should not listen to you."
"Well, then, he said, 'such as begin by making free with the devil's name, aye end by doing it with all the names in heaven.' 'Father,' said I, 'I am a soldier, and this is but my "consigne" or watchword.' 'Oh, then, it is just a custom?' said he. I not divining the old fox, and thinking to clear myself, said, 'Ay, it was.' 'Then that is ten times worse,' said he. ''Twill bring him about your ears one of these days. He still comes where he hears his name often called.' Observe! no gratitude for the tidings which neither his missals nor his breviary had ever let him know. Then he was so good as to tell me, soldiers do commonly the crimes for which all other men are broke on the wheel; 'à savoir' murder, rape, and pillage."