"From that I infer there is a new face at Pierre Grignon's."
"Your inference is correct. The Grignons always lodge the priests, and a great man like this one will be certainly quartered with them."
"What is he like?"
"A smooth and easy gentleman."
"In a cassock?"
"Tell a poor post lieutenant what a cassock is."
"The long-skirted black coat reaching to the heels."
"Our missionary priests don't wear it here. He has the bands and broad hat and general appearance of a priest, but his coat isn't very long."
"Then he has laid aside the cassock while traveling through this country."
The prelate from Ghent, no doubt a common priest, that the lieutenant undertook to dignify, slipped directly out of my mind.