Elias--and they'll send the coach for you?"

"_Hominibus_ impossible," replied the monk, as he filled his glass.

Tabary was in ecstasies.

Villon filliped his nose again.

"Laugh at my jokes, if you like," he said.

Villon made a face at him. "Think of rhymes to 'fish,' " he said. "What
have you to do with Latin? You'll wish you knew none of it at the great
assizes, when the devil calls for Guido Tabary, _clericus_--the devil
with the humpback and red-hot fingernails. Talking of the devil," he
added, in a whisper, "look at Montigny!"

All three peered covertly at the gamester. He did not seem to be
enjoying his luck. His mouth was a little to a side; one nostril nearly
shut, and the other much inflated. The black dog was on his back, as
people say, in terrifying nursery metaphor; and he breathed hard under
the gruesome burden.

"He looks as if he could knife him," whispered Tabary, with round eyes.

The monk shuddered, and turned his face and spread his open hands to the
red embers. It was the cold that thus affected Dom Nicolas, and not any
excess of moral sensibility.

"Come now," said Villon--"about this ballade. How does it run so far?"
And beating time with his hand, he read it aloud to Tabary.