"No, no!" the Boy called after him, choking a little, half with suppressed merriment, half with nervous fatigue. "Father Brachet, if you're kind to us, Brother Paul will never forgive you. We're all in disgrace."
"Hein! What?"
"Yes, we're all desperately wicked."
"No, no," objected Nicholas, ready to go back on so tactless an advocate.
"And Brother Paul has just been saying—"
"What is it, what is it?"
The Father Superior spoke a little sharply, and himself sat down in the wooden armchair he before had placed for his white guest.
The three culprits stood in front of him on a dead level of iniquity.
"You see, Father Brachet, Ol' Chief has been very ill—"
"I know. Much as we needed him here, Paul insisted on hurrying back to Pymeut"—he interrupted himself as readily as he had interrupted the Boy—"but ze Ol' Chief looks lively enough."