cied even
then that I caught something ominous in the sound of my name as it
passed from lip to lip; and nervously I made all haste to the chamber.
But fast as I went I did not go fast enough; one thrust me on this side,
another on that. The steward cursed me as he handed me on to the
head-clerk, who stormed at me; while the secretary waited for me at the
door, and, seizing me by the neck, ran me into the room. "In, rascal,
in!" he growled in my ear, "and I hope your skin may pay for it!"

Naturally by this time I was quaking: and Monseigneur's looks finished
me. He stood in the middle of the chamber, his plump handsome face pale
and sullen. And as he scowled at me, "Yes!" he said curtly, "that is the
fellow. What does he say?"

"Speak!" the head-clerk cried, seizing me by the ear and twisting it
until I fell on my knees. "Imbecile! But it is likely enough he did it
on purpose."

"Ay, and was bribed!" said the secretary.

"He should be hung up," the steward cried, truculently, "before he does
further mischief! And if my lord will give the word----"

"Silence!" the Bishop said, with a dark glance at me. "What does he
plead?"

The head-clerk twisted my ear until I screamed. "Ingrate!" he cried. "Do
you hear his Grace speak to you? Answer him aloud!"

"My lord," I cried piteously, "I do not know of what I am accused. And
besides, I have done nothing! Nothing!"

"Nothing!" half a dozen echoed. "Nothing!" the head-clerk added
brutally. "Nothing, and you add a cipher to the census of Paris!
Nothing, and your lying pen led my lord to state the population to be
five millions instead of five hundred thousand! Nothing, and you sent
his Grace's Highness to the Council to be corrected by low clerks and
people, and made a laughing-stock for the Cardinal, and----"

"Silence!" said the Bishop, fiercely. "Enough! Take him away, and----"

"Hang him!" cried the steward.

"No, fool, but have him to the courtyard, and let the grooms flog him
through the gates. And have a care you," he continued, addressing me,
"that I do not see your face again or it will be worse for you!"

I flung myself down and would have appealed against the sentence, but
the Bishop, who had suffered at the Council and whose ears still burned,
was pitiless. Before I could utter three words a dozen officious hands
plucked me up and thrust me to the door. Outside worse things awaited
me. A shower of kicks and cuffs and blows fell upon me; vainly
strugglin