were heard approaching from within. A barred wicket fell open in the
iron-studded door, and emitted a gush of yellow light.

"Hold up your face to the wicket," said the chaplain from within.

"It's only me," whimpered Villon.

"Oh, it's only you, is it?" returned the chaplain; and he cursed him
with foul, unpriestly oaths for disturbing him at such an hour, and bade
him be off to hell, where he came from.

"My hands are blue to the wrist," pleaded Villon; "my feet are dead and
full of twinges; my nose aches with the sharp air; the cold lies at my
heart. I may be dead before morning. Only this once, father, and, before
God, I will never ask again!"

"You should have come earlier," said the ecclesiastic, coolly. "Young
men require a lesson now and then." He shut the wicket and retired
deliberately into the interior of the house.

Villon was beside himself; he beat upon the door with his hands and
feet, and shouted hoarsely after the chaplain.

"Wormy old fox!" he cried. "If I had my hand under your twist, I would
send you flying headlong into the bottomless pit."

A door shut in the interior, faintly audible to the poet down long
passages. He passed his hand over his mouth with an oath. And then the
humour of the situation struck him, and he laughed and looked lightly up
to heaven, where the stars seemed to be winking over his discomfiture.