ou ever told a lie?"

"No, as to that, no. I am not a liar. That is my quality. To say that I
have never told a big story, I would not like to say that. To say that I
have never made people believe things that were not true when it was to
my own interest, I would not like to say that. But as for lying, I am not
a liar."

The priest simply said:

"Watch yourself more closely." Then he continued:

"'The works of the flesh thou shalt not desire
Except in marriage only.'

"Did you ever desire, or live with, any other woman than your wife?"

Sabot exclaimed with sincerity:

"As to that, no; oh, as to that, no, m'sieu le Cure. My poor wife,
deceive her! No, no! Not so much as the tip of a finger, either in
thought or in act. That is the truth."

They were silent a few seconds, then, in a lower tone, as though a doubt
had arisen in his mind, he resumed:

"When I go to town, to say that I never go into a house, you know, one of
the licensed houses, just to laugh and talk and see something different,
I could not say that. But I always pay, monsieur le cure, I always pay.
From the moment you pay, without anyone seeing or knowing you, no one can
get you into trouble."

The cure did not insist, and gave him absolution.

Theodule Sabot did the work on the chancel, and goes to communion every
month.

THE WRONG HOUSE

Quartermaster Varajou had obtained a week's leave to go and visit his
sister, Madame Padoie. Varajou, who was in garrison at Rennes and was
leading a pretty gay life, finding himself high and dry, wrote to his
sister saying that he would devote a week to her. It was not that he
cared particularly for Mme. Padoie, a little moralist, a devotee, and
always cross; but he needed money, needed it very badly, and he
remembered that, of all his relations, the Padoies were the only ones
whom he had never approached on the subject.

Pere Varajou, formerly a horticulturist at Angers, but now retired from
business, had closed his purse strings to his scapegrace son and had
hardly seen him for two years. His daughter had married Padoie, a former
treasury clerk, who had just been appointed tax collector at Vannes.

Varajou, on leaving the train, had some one direct him to the house of
his brother-in-law, whom he found in his office arguing with the Breton
peasants of the neighborhood. Padoie rose from his seat, held out his
hand across the table littered with papers, murmured, "Take a chair. I
will be a