At this Chamaille fairly lost his temper. “What! satisfied?” cried he; “you are a horrible mixture of Calvinist, heretic, and Bible-pattering Huguenot; you would push aside even the vicar, and presume to dictate to your Mother Church. Oh! generation of vipers!” It was now Paillard’s turn to be angry, because, as he said, he could not suffer any one to apply the term Huguenot to him; he declared he was a loyal Frenchman and son of the Church, and had a good head on his shoulders too, so that he could see through a millstone as well as the next man; that he knew a fool when he saw him, and Chamaille was three parts a fool or three fools in one, just as he pleased; and he added that since God is the fountain of light and reason, if we would respect God, we should respect our own reason also. After this silence settled down, except for an occasional grunt as they sat back to back at the table, finishing their bottle.--I burst out laughing, and they noticed then for the first time that I had taken no part in the dispute, though I had followed the whole argument with delight, and caught myself imitating the motions of their lips, frowning when they frowned, and moving my features like a rabbit eating a cabbage leaf. Now they both appealed to me to know on which side I was. “I agree with both of you,” said I, “and not with you alone: let us thresh this thing out together. Folly leads to laughter, and laughter to wisdom;--when you want to estimate your possessions what do you do? You begin naturally by writing down your column of figures, and then you add them up. Now why not pursue the same method with any crotchets you may have in your head? Add them all together and the sum may be a truth, though truth is hard to seize, and mocks at those who would lay hands on her; still there is more than one answer to the riddle of the world, my children. We only see one side of the shield, so I am for all gods, pagan and Christian alike, and for the god of reason first and foremost.”