Voisenon knocked at every kennel of this deplorable street; not even a bark replied to the name of the Abbe Boiviel. At length, at a seventh floor above the mud, an old woman, who resided in a loft, to which access was obtained by means of a rope-ladder, informed him that the Abbe Boiviel had quitted the apartment about six months before, with the avowed intention of going to lodge at Menilmontant; she added, that this delay gave fair grounds for supposing that he must necessarily have changed his quarters at least five or six times in the course of these six months. Disappointed, but not discouraged, Voisenon descended from the dizzy height, reflecting upon the sad distress to which a man might be reduced, although possessing the secret of potable gold. An almost incredible chance had so willed it, that the Abbe Boiviel had changed his abode but three times since his descent from the garret of the Rue de Versailles. From Menilmontant he had removed to Passy, and from Passy to La Chapelle, where he now resided. At length the two abbes met; but to what delicate manoeuvres the seigneur of Voisenon was obliged to have recourse in accosting his rugged _comfrere_, who was at that moment engaged in eating his breakfast off a chair. He had sense enough to put off as long as possible the true subject of his visit; besides, what cared he for delays? He had found him at last, he was face to face with the mysterious, infallible physician, the successor of the great Albert. Boiviel was even more savage and morose than the Abbe de Voisenon had anticipated. He spoke of offering his services to the Missionary Society in order to get appointed to preach the Gospel in Japan, although, to tell the truth, he did not believe over-much in Christianity. "And I do not believe in Japan," might have perhaps replied the Abbe de Voisenon, had he been in a joking humor: but the fact is, he was thunderstruck at the enunciation of such a project. It was too provoking, when he, had at length found the Abbe Boiviel, to hear that the Abbe Boiviel was going to immolate himself in Japan.