Hardly was the bottle placed to the nostrils of the canon when he sneezed violently, with a cavernous bellowing, then coming out of his fainting fit, but not having the strength to rise, he turned his languid eyes, suffused with tears, to the doctor, and said, with an accent which he wished to be stern, but which was only tender: "Ah, cruel man!" "Cruel!" said the abbé, bewildered, "why do you call the doctor cruel, Dom Diégo?" "Yes," interposed the physician, perfectly calm and smiling, "what cruelty can you accuse me of, sir?" "You ask that, you ingrate!" said the canon. "You dare ask that!" "What! you call the doctor an ingrate!" said the abbé. "The doctor!" said the canon, "what doctor?" "Why, my friend, the man to whom you are speaking," said the abbé, "my friend standing there, Doctor Gasterini." "He!" cried the canon, rising abruptly. "I tell you that is my tempter, my seducer!" "The devil! he sees him everywhere," said the abbé, impatiently. "I repeat it to you that the gentleman is Doctor Gasterini, my friend." "And I repeat to you, abbé," cried Dom Diégo, "that the gentleman is the great cook of whom I have spoken to you!" "Doctor," said the abbé, earnestly, "in the name of Heaven, do explain this blunder." "There is no blunder at all, my dear abbé." "What?" "The canon speaks the truth," replied Doctor Gasterini. "Day before yesterday I had the pleasure of preparing a dish for him; for, in order to have the honour of calling yourself a glutton, you must have a practical acquaintance with the culinary art." CHAPTER XI. The abbé, amazed, looked at Doctor Gasterini, unable to believe what he had heard; at last he said: "What! you, doctor, have cooked dishes for Dom Diégo? You! you?" "Yes, I, my dear abbé." "A doctor," exclaimed the canon, in his turn amazed, "a physician?" "Yes, canon," replied Doctor Gasterini, "I am a physician, which does not prevent my being a passable cook." "Passable!" cried the canon, "say rather, divine! But what means this--" "I comprehend all!" replied Abbé Ledoux, after having remained silent and thoughtful a moment, "the plot was skilfully contrived." "What is it that you comprehend, abbé? Of what plot are you talking?" said the canon, who, after his first astonishment, began to wonder how a physician could be such an extraordinary cook. "I pray you explain yourself, abbé!" "Do you know, Dom Diégo," asked the abbé, with a bitter smile, "who Doctor Gasterini is?" "But," stammered the canon, wiping the perspiration from his brow, for he had been making superhuman efforts to penetrate the mystery, "everything is so complicated--so strange--that--"