"He is able to read all sorts of writing," replied my mother.

And going near the friar, she recognised the prayer of St Margaret
by the picture representing the maiden martyr with a holy-water
sprinkler in her hand.

"This prayer," she added, "is difficult to read because the words of
it are very small and hardly divided, but happily it is quite
sufficient, when in labour-pains, to apply it like a plaster on the
place where the most pain is felt and it operates just as well, and
rather better, than when it is recited. I had the proof of it, sir,
when my son Jacquot was born, who is here present."

"Do not doubt about it, my good dame," said Friar Ange. "The orison
of St Margaret is sovereign for what you mentioned, but under the
special condition that the Capuchins get their Maundy."

In saying so, Friar Ange emptied the goblet of wine which my mother
had filled up for him and, throwing his wallet over his shoulder,
went off in the direction of the _Little Bacchus_.

My father served a quarter of fowl to the priest, who took out of
his pocket a piece of bread, a flagon of wine and a knife, the
copper handle of which represented the late king on a column in the
costume of a Roman emperor, and began to have his supper.

But having hardly taken the first morsel in his mouth he turned
round on my father and asked for some salt, rather surprised that no
salt cellar had been presented to him offhand.