"Farewell, farewell for ever," cried Dom Diégo, with a violent start, as if he had received an electric shock. "What! can it be true? you will abandon me for ever. Oh, no, no, I see all now: in making me regret your loss so deeply, you wish to put your services at a higher price. Well, then, speak, how much must you have?" "Ah, ah, ah, ah!" shouted the man with the cotton cap and white jacket, bursting into Mephistophelian laughter, and walking slowly toward the door. "No, no," cried the canon, clasping his hands; "no, you will not abandon me thus,--it would be atrocious, it would be savage, it would be to leave an unfortunate traveller in the middle of a burning desert, after having given him the delight of an oasis full of shade and freshness." "You ought to have been a great preacher in your time, canon," said the man in the white jacket, continuing his march toward the door. "Mercy, mercy!" cried Dom Diégo, in a voice choked with tears. "Ah, indeed, it is no longer the artist, the cook of genius with whom I plead; it is the man,--it is to one like myself that I bend the knee,--oh, see me, and beseech him not to leave a brother in hopeless woe." "Yes, and see me at your knees, too, my lord cook!" cried the worthy majordomo, excited by the emotion of his master, and like him, falling on his knees; "a very humble poor creature joins his prayer to that of the Lord Dom Diégo. Alas! do not abandon him, he will die!" "Yes," replied the cook, with a Satanic burst of laughter, "he will die, and he will die lean." The last sarcasm changed the despair of Dom Diégo to fury. He rose quickly, and, notwithstanding his obesity, threw himself upon the cook, crying: "Come to me, Pablo; the monster shall not cook for anybody, his death only can deliver me from his infernal persecution!" "My lord," cried the majordomo, less excited than his master, "what are you doing? Grief makes you wild." Fortunately, the man in the white jacket, at the first aggressive movement of Dom Diégo, recoiled two steps, and put himself in a defensive attitude by means of a large kitchen knife which he brandished in one hand, while in the other he held a sharp larding-pin. At the sight of the formidable knife and larding-pin, drawn like a dagger, the murderous exasperation of the canon was dispelled; but the violence of his emotions, the heat of his blood, and the state of his digestion produced such a revolution that he tottered and fell unconscious in the arms of the majordomo, who, too weak to sustain such a weight, himself sank to the floor, screaming with all his strength: "Help! help!" Then the man in the white jacket disappeared, with a last resounding burst of laughter which would have done honour to Satan himself, and terrified the majordomo almost to death. CHAPTER IX. Many days had elapsed since the canon, Dom Diégo, had been so mercilessly abandoned by the strange and inimitable cook of whom we have spoken.