greater than his passion for showing his own power.

"Religion--religion is a very good way of making money, better than
most, if one knows how to work the machine. The soul, it is a fine
instrument on which to play, if one is skilful. Our cure has a grand
touch on this instrument. You should see the good man take up a
collection, it is better than a comedy."

Here the cobbler turned actor; he rose, scattering his utensils right
and left; he assumed a grand air and a mincing, softly tread, the tread
of a priest. His flexible voice imitated admirably the rounded,
unctuous, autocratic tone peculiar to the graduates of St. Sulpice.

"You should hear him, when the collection does not suit him: '_Mes
freres et mes soeurs_, I see that _le bon Dieu_ isn't in your minds and
your hearts to-day; you are not listening to his voice; the Saviour is
then speaking in vain?' Then he prays--" the cobbler folded his hands
with a great parade of reference, lifting his eyes as he rolled his
lids heavenward hypocritically--"yes, he prays--and then he passes the
plate himself! He holds it before your very nose, there is no pushing
it aside; he would hold it there till you dropped--till Doomsday. Ah,
he's a hard crust, he is! There's a tyrant for you--_la monarchie
absolue_--that's what he believes in. He must have this, he must have
that. Now it is a new altar-cloth, or a fresh Virgin of the modern
make, from Paris, with a robe of real lace; the old one was black and
faded, too black to pray to. Now it is a _huissier_, forsooth, that we
must have, we, a parish of a few hundred souls, who know our seats in
the church as well as we know our own noses. One would think a 'suisse'
would have done; but we are swells now--_avec ce gaillard-la_, only the
tiptop is good enough. So, if you grace our poor old church with your