"Well, one fine day—it was after all this business—his partner went off to Belgium, taking with him eight thousand pounds. They put the police on his track, but they could hear nothing of him. Our friend Dulaurens goes into a church and makes a vow to get converted if he finds his money again. They find his money for him and now his piety is simply sickening. I never see him now; but in the old days he was a lively one, I can tell you. Well, when I saw him I gave him a look and he understood. You see, I had twenty-five guns in my house and five hundred cartridges. When the police went there to search he had cleared them away. All the same I was kept three months shut up in the new building, and two or three times was fetched up in the night to be cross-examined, and I always went with a vague idea in my mind that I was going to be shot. You've gone through it all, and you know what it is.—And all that was for the sake of Socialism! And yet I heard a few words that ought to have enlightened me. When I was free again one of my prison friends came to see me at Sedan. 'Why, what's this,' he said, 'that I am told at the hotel? It seems that your father has land and money, and yet you have joined us! Why, I thought you hadn't anything!' Just fancy now, M. Mauperin—and when I think that even that did not open my eyes! You see I was convinced in those days that all those with whom I was in league wanted simply what I wanted: laws for rich and poor alike, the abolition of privileges, the end of the Revolution of '89 against the nobility—I thought we should stop there—eleven? Did I mark your last? I don't think I did—let us say twelve. But, good heavens! when I saw my republic I was disgusted with it, when I heard two men, who had just come down from the barricades in February, say, 'We ought not to have left them until we had made sure of two hundred a year!' And then the system of taxes according to the income; it's an iniquity—the hypocrisy of communism. But with taxes regulated by the income," continued M. Bourjot, eloquently breaking off in the midst of his own phrase, "I challenge them to find any one who will care to take the trouble of making a large fortune—thirteen, fourteen, fifteen—very good! Oh, you are too strong a player. All that has made me turn round—you understand?"
"Perfectly," replied M. Mauperin.
"Where's my ball—there? Yes, it has made me turn completely round; it has positively made a Legitimist of me. There—a bad cue again! But——"
"But what?"
"Well, there is one thing—Oh, on that subject, now, I have the same opinions still. I don't mind telling you. Anything approaching a parson—eighteen?—Oh, come, I'm done for! We invite the one here in this place—he's a very decent fellow; but as to priests—when you've known one as I have, who broke his leg getting over the college wall at night—they are a pack of Jesuits, you know, M. Mauperin!
"'Hommes noirs, d'où sortez-vous?
Nous sortons de dessous, terre.'"
"Ah, that's my man! The god of simple folks!
"'Mes amis, parlons plus bas:
Je vois Judas, je vois Judas!'"
"Twenty-one! You've only three more. Now, at the place where my iron-works are, there's a bishop who is very easy-going. Well, all the bigots detest him. Now, if he pretended to be a bigot, if he were a hypocrite and spent all his time at church——"