umped in, mopping his head, and half-a-dozen
of our people following him, very drunk.

'You ought to have seen Rene bow; he does it beautifully.

'"A word with you, Laennec," said Doctor Break. "Jerry has been
practising some devilry or other on these poor wretches, and they've
asked me to be arbiter."

'"Whatever that means, I reckon it's safer than asking you to be
doctor," said Jerry, and Tom Dunch, one of our carters, laughed.

'"That ain't right feeling of you, Tom," Jerry said, "seeing how clever
Doctor Break put away your thorn in the flesh last winter." Tom's wife
had died at Christmas, though Doctor Break bled her twice a week. Doctor
Break danced with rage.

'"This is all beside the mark," he said. "These good people are willing
to testify that you've been impudently prying into God's secrets by
means of some papistical contrivance which this person"--he pointed
to poor Rene--"has furnished you with. Why, here are the things
themselves!" Rene was holding a trumpet in his hand.

'Then all the men talked at once. They said old Gaffer Macklin was dying
from stitches in his side where Jerry had put the trumpet--they called
it the devil's ear-piece; and they said it left round red witch-marks on
people's skins, and dried up their lights, and made 'em spit blood, and
threw 'em into sweats. Terrible things they said. You never heard such a
noise. I took advantage of it to cough.

'Rene and Jerry were standing with their backs to the pigsty. Jerry
fumbled in his big flap pockets and fished up a pair of pistols. You
ought to have seen the men give back when he cocked his. He passed one
to Rene.

'"Wait! Wait!" said Rene. "I will explain to the doctor if he permits."
He waved a trumpet at him, and the men at the gate shouted, "Don't touch
it, Doctor! Don't lay a hand to the thing."

'"Come, come!" said Rene. "You are not so big fool as you pretend. No?"

'Doctor Break backed toward the gate, watching Jerry's pistol, and Rene
followed him with his trumpet, like a nurse trying to amuse a child, and
put the ridiculous thing to his ear to show how it was used, and talked
of la Gloire, and l'Humanite, and la Science, while Doctor Break watched
jerry's pistol and swore. I nearly laughed aloud.

'"Now listen! Now listen!" said Rene. "This will be moneys in your
pockets, my dear confrere. You will become rich."

'Then Doctor Break said something about adventurers who could not earn
an honest living in their own co