“Now do tell the truth for once in your life!” answered M. Le Génil. “You have just come up to smell out a mitre, you old fox! To-morrow morning you will be showing yourself to the nuncio with a sanctimonious expression. Guitrel, you are going to be a bishop!” Hereupon the chaplain of the Convent of the Seven Wounds, the preacher at the church of Sainte-Louise, made a bow to the future bishop. Mingled with his ironic courtesy there was, perhaps, a certain strain of instinctive deference. Then once more his face fell into the harsh lines that revealed the temperament of a second Olivier Maillard.[1] [1] An eccentric priest of the fifteenth century. His sermons were full of denunciations against his enemies. He once attacked Louis XI, who threatened to throw him into the Seine. Maillard replied: “The King is master, but tell him that I shall get to heaven by water sooner than he will by his post-horses.” “Come in, then! Will you take some refreshment?” M. Guitrel was a reserved man, whose compressed lips showed his determination not to be pumped. As a matter of fact, it was quite true that he had come up to enlist powerful influence in support of his candidature, but he had no wish to explain all his wily courses to this naturally frank friend of his. For M. Le Génil made, not only a virtue of his natural frankness, but even a policy. M. Guitrel stammered: “Don’t imagine ... dismiss this notion that ...” M. Le Génil shrugged his shoulders, exclaiming, “You old mystery-monger!” Then, conducting his friend to his bedroom, he sat down once more beneath the light of his lamp and resumed his interrupted task, which was that of mending his breeches. M. Le Génil, popular preacher as he was both in Paris and Versailles, did his own mending, partly to save his old servant the trouble and partly because he was fond of handling a needle, a taste he had acquired during the years of grinding poverty that he had endured when he first entered the Church. And now this giant with lungs of brass, who fulminated against atheists from the elevation of a pulpit, was meekly sitting on a rush-bottomed chair, occupied in drawing a needle in and out with his huge red hands. In the midst of his task he raised his head and glancing shyly towards Guitrel with his big, kindly eyes, exclaimed: “We’ll have a game of manille to-night, you old trickster.” But Guitrel, hesitating, yet firm, stammered out that he would be obliged to go out after dinner. He was full of plans, and after pushing on the preparations for a meal, he gobbled down his food, to the great disgust of his host, who was not only a great eater, but a great talker. He refused to wait for dessert, but, retiring to another room, shut himself in, drew a layman’s suit from his portmanteau and put it on.