"Begone," he said to Jehan. "I am expecting some one."
The scholar made one more effort.
"Brother Claude, give me at least one little parisis to buy something to eat."
"How far have you gone in the Decretals of Gratian?" demanded Dom Claude.
"I have lost my copy books.
"Where are you in your Latin humanities?"
"My copy of Horace has been stolen."
"Where are you in Aristotle?"
"I' faith! brother what father of the church is it, who says that the errors of heretics have always had for their lurking place the thickets of Aristotle's metaphysics? A plague on Aristotle! I care not to tear my religion on his metaphysics."
"Young man," resumed the archdeacon, "at the king's last entry, there was a young gentleman, named Philippe de Comines, who wore embroidered on the housings of his horse this device, upon which I counsel you to meditate: ~Qui non laborat, non manducet~."
The scholar remained silent for a moment, with his finger in his ear, his eyes on the ground, and a discomfited mien.
All at once he turned round to Claude with the agile quickness of a wagtail.
"So, my good brother, you refuse me a sou parisis, wherewith to buy a crust at a baker's shop?"
"~Qui non laborat, non manducet~."
At this response of the inflexible archdeacon, Jehan hid his head in his hands, like a woman sobbing, and exclaimed with an expression of despair: "~Orororororoi~."
"What is the meaning of this, sir?" demanded Claude, surprised at this freak.
"What indeed!" said the scholar; and he lifted to Claude his impudent eyes into which he had just thrust his fists in order to communicate to them the redness of tears; "'tis Greek! 'tis an anapaest of AEschylus which expresses grief perfectly."
And here he burst into a laugh so droll and violent that it made the archdeacon smile. It was Claude's fault, in fact: why had he so spoiled that child?
"Oh! good Brother Claude," resumed Jehan, emboldened by this smile, "look at my worn out boots. Is there a cothurnus in the world more tragic than these boots, whose soles are hanging out their tongues?"
The archdeacon promptly returned to his original severity.
"I will send you some new boots, but no money."
"Only a poor little parisis, brother," continued the suppliant Jehan. "I will learn Gratian by heart, I will believe firmly in God, I will be a regular Pythagoras of science and virtue. But one little parisis, in mercy! Would you have famine bite me with its jaws which are gaping in front of me, blacker, deeper, and more noisome than a Tartarus or the nose of a monk?"