"I deny," said Dom Claude coldly, "neither pharmacy nor the invalid. I reject the physician."
"Then it is not true," resumed Coictier hotly, "that gout is an internal eruption; that a wound caused by artillery is to be cured by the application of a young mouse roasted; that young blood, properly injected, restores youth to aged veins; it is not true that two and two make four, and that emprostathonos follows opistathonos."
The archdeacon replied without perturbation: "There are certain things of which I think in a certain fashion." Coictier became crimson with anger.
"There, there, my good Coictier, let us not get angry," said Gossip Tourangeau. "Monsieur the archdeacon is our friend."
Coictier calmed down, muttering in a low tone,—
"After all, he's mad."
"Pasque-dieu, Master Claude," resumed Gossip Tourangeau, after a silence, " You embarrass me greatly. I had two things to consult you upon, one touching my health and the other touching my star."
"Monsieur," returned the archdeacon, "if that be your motive, you would have done as well not to put yourself out of breath climbing my staircase. I do not believe in Medicine. I do not believe in Astrology."
"Indeed!" said the man, with surprise.
Coictier gave a forced laugh.
"You see that he is mad," he said, in a low tone, to Gossip Tourangeau. "He does not believe in astrology."
"The idea of imagining," pursued Dom Claude, "that every ray of a star is a thread which is fastened to the head of a man!"
"And what then, do you believe in?" exclaimed Gossip Tourangeau.
The archdeacon hesitated for a moment, then he allowed a gloomy smile to escape, which seemed to give the lie to his response: "Credo in Deum."
"Dominum nostrum" added Gossip Tourangeau, making the sign of the cross.
"Amen," said Coictier.
