"There you are deceived, you great viper! I was obliged to go and keep the poor girl company."
At this assertion, the religious pamphleteer hummed a tune, with an incredulous and mocking air.
"You think I have played Philemon tricks?" cried Rose-Pompon, cracking a nut with the indignation of injured innocence.
"I do not say tricks; but one little rose-colored trick."
"I tell you, that it was not for my pleasure I went out. On the contrary—for, during my absence, poor Cephyse disappeared."
"Yes, Mother Arsene told me that the Bacchanal-Queen was gone on a journey. But when I talk of Philemon, you talk of Cephyse; we don't progress."
"May I be eaten by the black panther that they are showing at the Porte
Saint-Martin if I do not tell you the truth. And, talking of that, you
must get tickets to take me to see those animals, my little Ninny Moulin!
They tell me there never were such darling wild beasts."
"Now really, are you mad?"
"Why so?"
"That I should guide your youth, like a venerable patriarch, through the dangers of the Storm-blown Tulip, all well and good—I ran no risk of meeting my pastors and masters; but were I to take you to a Lent Spectacle (since there are only beasts to be seen), I might just run against my sacristans—and how pretty I should look with you on my arm!"