Luke escorted by a fragmentary ox, Saint Mark lacking a shoulder and
part of his beard, Saint Peter holding up an arm from which the hand
holding the keys was broken off.

"There used to be a swing in here," said Carhaix, "for the little girls
of the neighbourhood. But the privilege was abused, as privileges always
are. In the dusk all kinds of things were done for a few sous. The
curate finally had the swing taken down and the room closed up."

"And what is that over there?" inquired Durtal, perceiving, in a corner,
an enormous fragment of rounded metal, like half a gigantic skull-cap.
On it the dust lay thick, and and in the hollow the meshes on meshes of
fine silken web, dotted with the black bodies of lurking spiders, were
like a fisherman's hand net weighted with little slugs of lead.

"That? Ah, monsieur!" and there was fire in Carhaix's mild eyes, "that
is the skull of an old, old bell whose like is not cast these days. The
ring of that bell, monsieur, was like a voice from heaven." And suddenly
he exploded, "Bells have had their day!--As I suppose Des Hermies has
told you.--Bell ringing is a lost art. And why wouldn't it be? Look at
the men who are doing it nowadays. Charcoal burners, roofers, masons out
of a job, discharged firemen, ready to try their hand at anything for a
franc. There are curates who think nothing of saying, 'Need a man? Go
out in the street and pick up a soldier for ten sous. He'll do.' That's
why you read about accidents like the one that happened lately at Notre
Dame, I think. The fellow didn't withdraw in time and the bell came down
like the blade of a guillotine and whacked his leg right off.

"People will spend thirty thousand francs on an altar baldachin, and
ruin themselves for music, and they have to have gas in their churches,