“Where duty calls us,” replied Mathéus.
“Yes, but to what place?”
“To wherever is most proper for the propagation of the doctrine.”
They had reached the Rue des Arcades, and halted under a lamp.
“Are you not hungry, Maître Frantz?” inquired Coucou Peter.
“Slightly, my friend.”
“Like me,” said the disciple, scratching his ear; “the Great Demiourgos ought to send us a supper.”
Mathéus looked at Coucou Peter; he had not in the least the appearance of jesting, and this fact made Mathéus himself very serious.
For more than a quarter of an hour they watched the people passing through the arcades—sellers crying their wares, pretty girls stopping at the shop-windows, students jingling their spurs on the pavement and smacking their riding-whips, grave professors making their way through the crowd, with packets of books under their arms.
At length Coucou Peter said—