op candles, began to explore the room where the two men were, bumping
themselves against the walls and buzzing their complaints.

"A man is nothing but a young beast until he is past twenty-five years
old," said Dr. Dunlap.

Father Baby added his own opinion to this general remark.--

"Very often he is nothing but an old beast when you catch him past
seventy. But it all depends on what kind of a man he is."

"Friar, do you believe in marriage?"

"How could I believe in marriage?"

"But do you believe in it for other people?"

"The Church has always held it to be a sacred institution."

Dr. Dunlap muttered a combination of explosive words which he had
probably picked up from sailors, making the churchman cross himself. He
spoke out, with a reckless laugh:--

"I married as soon as I came of age, and here I am, ruined for my prime
by that act."

"What!" exclaimed Father Baby, setting his hands on his hips, "you a man
of family, and playing bachelor among the women of Kaskaskia?"

"Oh, I have no wife now. She finally died, thank Heaven. If she had only
died a year sooner! But nothing matters now."

"My son," observed Father Baby severely, "Satan has you in his net. You
utter profane words, you rail against institutions sanctioned by the
Church, and you have desired the death of a human being. Repent and do
penance"--

"You have a customer, friar," sneered the young man, lifting his head to
glance aside at a figure entering the shop. "Vigo's idiot slave boy is
waiting to be cheated."

"By my cappo!" whispered Father Baby, a cunning look netting wrinkles
over his lean face, "you remind me of the bad shilling I have laid by me
to pass on that nigger. O Lamb of mercy,"--he turned and hastily plumped
on his knees before a sacred picture on the wall,--"I will, in expiation
for passing that shilling, say twelve paters and twelve aves at the foot
of the altar of thy Virgin Mother, or I will abstain from food a whole
day in thy honor."

Having offered this compromise, Father Baby sprung with a cheerful
eagerness to deal with Vigo's slave boy.

The doctor sat still, his ears closed to the chatter in the shop. His
bitter thoughts centred on the new arrival in Kaskaskia, on her brother,
on all her family.

She herself, unconscious that he inhabited the same hemisphere with her,
was standing up for the reel in Pierre Menard's house. The last carriage
had driven to the tall flight of entrance steps, discharged its lo