Pomfrette drew his rough knuckles across his forehead in a dazed way;
then, as the significance of the thing came home to him, he broke out
with a fierce oath, and strode away down the yard and into the road. On
the way to his house he met Duclosse the mealman and Garotte the lime-
burner. He wondered what they would do. He could see the fat, wheezy
Duclosse hesitate, but the arid, alert Garotte had determination in every
motion and look. They came nearer; they were about to pass; there was no
sign.

Pomfrette stopped short. "Good-day, lime-burner; good-day, Duclosse," he
said, looking straight at them.

Garotte made no reply, but walked straight on. Pomfrette stepped swiftly
in front of the mealman. There was fury in his face-fury and danger; his
hair was disordered, his eyes afire.

"Good-day, mealman," he said, and waited. "Duclosse," called Garotte
warningly, "remember!" Duclosse's knees shook, and his face became
mottled like a piece of soap; he pushed his fingers into his shirt and
touched the Agnus Dei that he carried there. That and Garotte's words
gave him courage. He scarcely knew what he said, but it had meaning.
"Good-bye-leper," he answered.

Pomfrette's arm flew out to throw the pitcher at the mealman's head, but
Duclosse, with a grunt of terror, flung up in front of his face the small
bag of meal that he carried, the contents pouring over his waistcoat from
a loose corner. The picture was so ludicrous that Pomfrette laughed with
a devilish humour, and flinging the pitcher at the bag, he walked away
towards his own house. Duclosse, pale and frightened, stepped from among
the fragments of crockery, and with backward glances towards Pomfrette