ch are
interlaced, interlocked, fitted together, enchained enchased, interlined
one upon another, and bite into each other in a manner that is truly
firm and graceful."

"And you desire nothing?"

"No."

"And you regret nothing?"

"Neither regret nor desire. I have arranged my mode of life."

"What men arrange," said Claude, "things disarrange."

"I am a Pyrrhonian philosopher," replied Gringoire, "and I hold all
things in equilibrium."

"And how do you earn your living?"

"I still make epics and tragedies now and then; but that which brings me
in most is the industry with which you are acquainted, master; carrying
pyramids of chairs in my teeth."

"The trade is but a rough one for a philosopher."

"'Tis still equilibrium," said Gringoire. "When one has an idea, one
encounters it in everything."

"I know that," replied the archdeacon.

After a silence, the priest resumed,--

"You are, nevertheless, tolerably poor?"

"Poor, yes; unhappy, no."

At that moment, a trampling of horses was heard, and our two
interlocutors beheld defiling at the end of the street, a company of the
king's unattached archers, their lances borne high, an officer at
their head. The cavalcade was brilliant, and its march resounded on the
pavement.

"How you gaze at that officer!" said Gringoire, to the archdeacon.

"Because I think I recognize him."

"What do you call him?"

"I think," said Claude, "that his name is Phoebus de Chateaupers."

"Phoebus! A curious name! There is also a Phoebus, Comte de Foix. I
remember having known a wench who swore only by the name of Phoebus."

"Come away from here," said the priest. "I have something to say to
you."

From the moment of that troop's passing, some agitation had pierced
through the archdeacon's glacial envelope. He walked on. Gringoire
followed him, being accustomed to obey him, like all who had once
approached that man so full of ascendency. They reached in silence the
Rue des Bernardins, which was nearly deserted. Here Dom Claude paused.

"What have you to say to me, master?" Gringoire asked him.

"Do you not think that the dress of those cavaliers whom we have just
seen is far handsomer than yours and mine?"

Gringoire tossed his head.

"I' faith! I love better my red and yellow jerkin, than those scales
of iron and steel. A fine pleasure to produce, when you walk, the same
noise as the Quay of Old Iron, in an earthquake!"

"So, Gringoire, you have never cheris