“Oh! indeed; you and your blarney!” retorted the syndic. “Look here, I would willingly help you, but I cannot. I shall have to shut up the works soon, to turn off every one, even my cook. Are they making game of us with these taxes? I don’t know how we can go on; I haven’t ten shillings left in the world. It is not my place as syndic to say so, but the fault certainly lies with the Government....”
“Heigho!” said the blind man, “we shall be disappointed indeed, if we are putting our trust in you, Mr. Government!”
“You should put your trust in Providence, young man,” said the preaching friar, “and come and hear my sermons!”
“Indeed and he shall come to the sermons, and be hanged to him!” exclaimed the archdeacon. “I’ll give him a couple of eggs for every sermon; at Easter, so many sermons and so many eggs. But if you miss one sermon, you blind rascal, you shall get nothing at all!”
“Put it in writing, sir!”
“Why, you blind scoundrel, are you afraid of my dying first?”
“You, sir?—why, you’ll live to the age of Noah on the clerical soups that Modesta makes for you! No; it’s I that may die before Easter, and I should like to bequeath that little legacy of eggs to my family!”
“Come, come, Modesta! never mind the blind man; it’s time to clear the table. Don’t sit there keeping the brazier warm.”
“Sakes alive!” exclaimed Modesta, looking into the dish; “there were sixty, and there are only eleven left!”
“I’m very sorry I didn’t eat them too!” replied Phœbus, “but I’ll come to breakfast after the sermon to-morrow and finish them!”