"Not I!" The Prior laughed. "I am merely an onlooker here, and I must say that, for once, I thoroughly enjoy the spectator's role. Proceed, Professor Luttman."
"Very well." The Professor turned to Franz. "Do you know what I really thought the day I expelled you from my school?"
"You thought I was too stupid to learn," Franz replied.
"No such thing!" Professor Luttman denied. "I thought, 'There goes an Alpinist, one who can never discover in my beloved books any of the inspiration that he finds in his beloved mountains. It is truly unjust to keep him in school when he does not belong here.' I thought also that, one day, you would make your mark in the world."
"I am just a maronnier at St. Bernard Hospice," Franz protested.
"And how grateful I am because you are 'just a maronnier,'" Professor Luttman said. "Were you not, I would have died in the snow."
"They would have found you," Franz insisted.
"We would not!" Anton Martek spoke up. "We would have continued digging where we thought he was. It never occurred to any of us that he might be three hundred feet away and down the wall of snow."
"That is true," Father Benjamin agreed.
"Very true," said Father Mark.