nt, calling him excommunicated wretch, whose very breath was
poisonous; swearing that never another mass should be sung in the chapel
that had been polluted with sacrilege, and finally promising that the
archbishop should avenge him.

The count let him say on, and then forced him into a chair, and the
unworthy ecclesiastic not only ate but got drunk. Thus peace was
concluded, and the abbe forgot all his wrongs.

A few days later two Capuchins came to visit him at noon. They did not
go, and as he did not care to dismiss them, dinner was served without any
place being laid for the friars. Thereupon the bolder of the two informed
the count that he had had no dinner. Without replying, the count had him
accommodated with a plateful of rice. The Capuchin refused it, saying that
he was worthy to sit, not only at his table, but at a monarch's. The
count, who happened to be in a good humour, replied that they called
themselves "unworthy brethren," and that they were consequently not
worthy of any of this world's good things.

The Capuchin made but a poor answer, and as I thought the count to be in
the right I proceeded to back him up, telling the friar he ought to be
ashamed at having committed the sin of pride, so strictly condemned by
the rules of his order.

The Capuchin answered me with a torrent of abuse, so the count ordered a
pair of scissors to be brought, that the beards of the filthy rogues
might be cut off. At this awful threat the two friars made their escape,
and we laughed heartily over the incident.

If all the count's eccentricities had been of this comparatively harmless
and amusing nature, I should not have minded, but such was far from being
the case.

Instead of chyle his organs must have distilled some virulent poison; he
was always at his worst in his after dinner hours. His appetite was
furious; he ate more like a tiger than a man. One day we happened to be
eating woodcock, and I could not help praising the dish in the style of
the true gourmand. He immediately took up his bird, tore it limb from
limb, and gravely bade me not to praise the dishes I liked as it
irritated him. I felt an inclination to laugh and also an inclination to
throw the bottle at his head, which I should probably have indulged in
had I been twenty years younger. However, I did neither, feeling that I
should either leave him or accommodate myself to his humours.

Three months later Madame Costa, the actress whom he had gone to s