“Dear archdeacon, my dear sir!” said the Franciscan, pointing at Phœbus, “this suit of clothes has belonged to a priest; do you not see the black stockings, the knee-breeches, the waistcoat? Archdeacon, it is not the proper thing to let the clothes of the clergy be seen in a masquerade.”
“Persicomele!” exclaimed the archdeacon, looking more closely, as he passed his hand over his knees, as if dusting his breeches. “Who gave you these clothes?”
“The chaplain!”
“Good! very good!” exclaimed the syndic, chuckling with delight, but he immediately resumed the calm, severe, and munificent aspect of the person who has to sign municipal edicts.
“It seems impossible that, at the present day, certain priests should have so little respect for their cloth!” said the Franciscan indignantly. “Fatal effects, my dear sir!...” And he took an enormous pinch of snuff, with both hands.
“You must not believe, reverend father,” replied the syndic, with some heat, “that the chaplain gives the law to our commune; he is a——”
“Sir!” exclaimed the archdeacon.
“But you don’t know——”
“I don’t want to know. The chaplain is a priest, and that’s enough! Find me another who for 260 francs will take the services of the Misericordia the whole year round, who will go ten or twelve miles on foot, in the depth of winter, or in the dog-days, to attend a funeral, and that with seventy years on his back! And then he has all his brother’s family to keep—seven persons! But you were only joking, Cavalier!—so never mind, let it pass.... And as for you, you blind rascal, I must speak to you again about this. You had no business to go masquerading in these clothes, which were given you in charity. To-morrow, I shall tell the chaplain to take them away from you again!”
“What a pity!” thought Doctor Phœbus to himself; “I was going to make the overcoat into a nice jacket to wear only on feast-days!”