between a whistle and a groan. It was an eerie, uncomfortable talent of
the poet's, much detested by the Picardy monk.

"Can't you hear it rattle in the gibbet?" said Villon. "They are
all dancing the devil's jig on nothing, up there. You may dance, my
gallants; you'll be none the warmer. Whew, what a gust! Down went
somebody just now! A medlar the fewer on the three-legged medlar-tree!
I say, Dom Nicolas, it'll be cold to-night on the St. Denis Road?" he
asked.

Dom Nicholas winked both his big eyes, and seemed to choke upon his
Adam's apple. Montfaucon, the great, grisly Paris gibbet, stood hard by
the St. Denis Road, and the pleasantry touched him on the raw. As for
Tabary, he laughed immoderately over the medlars; he had never heard
anything more light-hearted; and he held his sides and crowed. Villon
fetched him a fillip on the nose, which turned his mirth into an attack
of coughing.

"Oh, stop that row," said Villon, "and think of rhymes to 'fish'!"

"Doubles or quits? Said Montigny, doggedly.

"With all my heart," quoth Thevenin.

"Is there any more in that bottle?" asked the monk.

"Open another," said Villon. "How do you ever hope to fill that big
hogshead, your body, with little things like bottles? And how do you
expect to get to heaven? How many angels, do you fancy, can be spared
to carry up a single monk from Picardy? Or do you think yourself another