"Ah! a very pretty post, I've heard."

"Yes, 'tis a trade like ours, where they sell cord instead of thread; but
it is less honest, for they kill men oftener. But 'tis also more
profitable; everything has its price."

"Very properly so," said Jacques.

"Behold me, then, in a red robe. I helped to give a yellow one and
brimstone to a fine fellow, who was cure at Loudun, and who had got into
a convent of nuns, like a wolf in a fold; and a fine thing he made of
it."

"Ha, ha, ha! That's very droll!" laughed Jacques. "Drink," said
Houmain. "Yes, Jago, I saw him after the affair, reduced to a little
black heap like this charcoal. See, this charcoal at the end of my
poniard. What things we are! That's just what we shall all come to when
we go to the Devil."

"Oh, none of these pleasantries!" said the other, very gravely. "You
know that I am religious."

"Well, I don't say no; it may be so," said Houmain, in the same tone.
"There's Richelieu, a Cardinal! But, no matter. Thou must know, then,
as I was Advocate-General, I advocated--"

"Ah, thou art quite a wit!"

"Yes, a little. But, as I was saying, I advocated into my own pocket