"And vice versa, what?"
And I added, to myself, "pack of fools!"
It was, however, indeed a sight to see my uncle when he had a freemason to dinner.
On meeting they shook hands in a mysterious manner that was irresistibly funny; one could see that they were going through a series of secret mysterious pressures. When I wished to put my uncle in a rage, I had only to tell him that dogs also have a manner which savours very much of freemasonry, when they greet one another on meeting.
Then my uncle would take his friend into a corner to tell him something important, and at dinner they had a peculiar way of looking at each other, and of drinking to each other, in a manner as if to say: "We belong to it, don't we?"
And to think that there are millions on the face of the globe who are amused at such monkey tricks! I would sooner be a Jesuit.
Now in our town there really was an old Jesuit who was my uncle's pet aversion. Every time he met him, or if he only saw him at a distance, he used to say: "Dirty skunk!" And then, taking my arm, he would whisper to me:
"Look here, that fellow will play me a trick some day or other, I feel sure of it."
My uncle spoke quite truly, and this was how it happened, through my fault moreover.
It was close on Holy Week, and my uncle made up his mind to give a dinner on Good Friday, a real dinner with chitterlings and saveloy sausage. I resisted as much as I could, and said: