nctually, and at ten o'clock we had not yet finished. Five
of us had drunk eighteen bottles of choice, still wine and four of
champagne. Then my uncle proposed what he was in the habit of calling
"the archbishop's circuit." Each man put six small glasses in front of
him, each of them filled with a different liqueur, and they had all to be
emptied at one gulp, one after another, while one of the waiters counted
twenty. It was very stupid, but my uncle thought it was very suitable to
the occasion.

At eleven o'clock he was as drunk as a fly. So we had to take him home in
a cab and put him to bed, and one could easily foresee that his
anti-clerical demonstration would end in a terrible fit of indigestion.

As I was going back to my lodgings, being rather drunk myself, with a
cheerful drunkenness, a Machiavellian idea struck me which satisfied all
my sceptical instincts.

I arranged my necktie, put on a look of great distress, and went and,
rang loudly at the old Jesuit's door. As he was deaf he made me wait a
longish while, but at length appeared at his window in a cotton nightcap
and asked what I wanted.

I shouted out at the top of my voice:

"Make haste, reverend sir, and open the door; a poor, despairing, sick
man is in need of your spiritual ministrations."

The good, kind man put on his trousers as quickly as he could, and came
down without his cassock. I told him in a breathless voice that my uncle,
the Freethinker, had been taken suddenly ill, and fearing it was going to
be something serious, he had been seized with a sudden dread of death,
and wished to see the priest and talk to him; to have his advice and
comfort, to make his peace with the Church, and to confess, so as to be
able to cross the dreaded threshold at peace with himself; and I added in
a mocking tone:

"At any rate, he wishes it, and if it does him no good it can do him no
harm."

The old Jesuit, who was startled, delighted, and almost trembling, said
to me:

"Wait a moment, my son; I will come with you." But I replied: "Pardon me,
reverend father, if I do not go with you; but my convictions will not
allow me to do so. I even refused to come and fetch you, so I beg you not
to say that you have seen me, but to declare that you had a
presentiment--a sort of revelation of his illness."

The priest consented and went off quickly; knocked at my uncle's door,
and was soon let in; and I saw the black cassock disappear within that
stronghold of