en making love to my little Concha yourself, you dirty Scots
rogue! I will have your life, monsieur! Guard yourself!"

"'_Your_ Concha'--do you say, Master Friar?" cried Blair; "and pray who
gave you a right to have Conchas on your hands with the possessive
adjective before them? Is that permit included in your monkish articles
of association? Is adoration of pretty little Conchas set down in black
and red in your breviaries? Answer me that, sir!"

"No matter, monsieur," retorted the Frenchman; "I was a man before I was
a monk. Indeed, in the latter capacity I am not full-fledged yet. And I
hold you answerable if in anything you have offended against the lady
you have named, or used arts to wile her heart from me!"

"I give you my word I never set eyes on the wench--but from what I
hear----"

"Stop there," cried the second novice; "be good enough to settle that
question later. For me, I must go back promptly with the answer about
the capon of Zaragoza and the two Bordeaux pigeons!"

The Scot looked at the Frenchman. The Frenchman looked at the Scot.

"As a compliment to the fair lady the Senorita Concha, say to my uncle
the capon, Francois!" said the lover.

"And as a compliment to yourself, my dear Brother Hilario, say to his
lordship _also_ the two Bordeaux pigeons!"

"_And_ the pigeons, Francois!" quoth the latest addition to the
brotherhood of Montblanch, with perfect seriousness.

CHAPTER VII

THE ABBOT'S DINNER

Rollo Blair kept his gasconnading promise. He dined with "his uncle,"
the abbot, that most wise, learned, and Christian prelate, Don Baltasar
Varela.

The abbot of Montblanch was glad to see Milord of Castle Blair in the
land of the Scots. It was not a Christian country, he had been informed.

"Then your venerability has been misinformed," cried Rollo, who thirsted
for argument with the high ecclesiastic upon transubstantiation,
consubstantiation, and all the other "ations" of his creed. But the
Abbot parried him neatly at the very first assault, by an inquiry as to
what he thought of _transverberacion_.

At this Rollo gasped, and found immediate occasion to change the subject
to the famous wine of the Abbey, _el Priorato_, while the little
Frenchman beamed appreciation of his uncle's ecclesiastical learning,
and that wise prelate twirled his thumbs about each other and discoursed
at large, his shrewd unfathomable grey eyes now fixed on one and now on
another of the company, as tho