"What are you driving at?" he said dryly.
"Well, in point of fact, this!" replied Jehan bravely, "I stand in need of money."
At this audacious declaration, the archdeacon's visage assumed a thoroughly pedagogical and paternal expression.
"You know, Monsieur Jehan, that our fief of Tirecbappe, putting the direct taxes and the rents of the nine and twenty houses in a block, yields only nine and thirty livres, eleven sous, six deniers, Parisian. It is one half more than in the time of the brothers Paclet, but it is not much."
"I need money," said Jehan stoically.
"You know that the official has decided that our twenty-one houses should he moved full into the fief of the Bishopric, and that we could redeem this homage only by paying the reverend bishop two marks of silver gilt of the price of six livres parisis. Now, these two marks I have not yet been able to get together. You know it."
"I know that I stand in need of money," repeated Jehan for the third time.
"And what are you going to do with it?"
This question caused a flash of hope to gleam before Jehan's eyes. He resumed his dainty, caressing air.
"Stay, dear Brother Claude, I should not come to you, with any evil motive. There is no intention of cutting a dash in the taverns with your unzains, and of strutting about the streets of Paris in a caparison of gold brocade, with a lackey, ~cum meo laquasio~. No, brother, 'tis for a good work."
"What good work?" demanded Claude, somewhat surprised.
"Two of my friends wish to purchase an outfit for the infant of a poor Haudriette widow. It is a charity. It will cost three forms, and I should like to contribute to it."
"What are names of your two friends?"
"Pierre l'Assommeur and Baptiste Croque-Oison*."
* Peter the Slaughterer; and Baptist Crack-Gosling.
"Hum," said the archdeacon; "those are names as fit for a good work as a catapult for the chief altar."
It is certain that Jehan had made a very bad choice of names for his two friends. He realized it too late.
"And then," pursued the sagacious Claude, "what sort of an infant's outfit is it that is to cost three forms, and that for the child of a Haudriette? Since when have the Haudriette widows taken to having babes in swaddling-clothes?"
Jehan broke the ice once more.
"Eh, well! yes! I need money in order to go and see Isabeau la Thierrye to-night; in the Val-d' Amour!"
"Impure wretch!" exclaimed the priest.
"~Avayveia~!" said Jehan.
This quotation, which the scholar borrowed with malice, perchance, from the wall of the cell, produced a singular effect on the archdeacon. He bit his lips and his wrath was drowned in a crimson flush.