“As I sat waiting for the rain to cease, Père Silas whiled away the time with a story,” I said.
“A story! What story? Père Silas is no romancist.”
“Shall I tell Monsieur the tale?”
“Yes: begin at the beginning. Let me hear some of Miss Lucy’s French—her best or her worst—I don’t much care which: let us have a good poignée of barbarisms, and a bounteous dose of the insular accent.”
“Monsieur is not going to be gratified by a tale of ambitious proportions, and the spectacle of the narrator sticking fast in the midst. But I will tell him the title—the ‘Priest’s Pupil.’”
“Bah!” said he, the swarthy flush again dyeing his dark cheek. “The good old father could not have chosen a worse subject; it is his weak point. But what of the ‘Priest’s Pupil?’”
“Oh! many things.”
“You may as well define what things. I mean to know.”
“There was the pupil’s youth, the pupil’s manhood;—his avarice, his ingratitude, his implacability, his inconstancy. Such a bad pupil, Monsieur!—so thankless, cold-hearted, unchivalrous, unforgiving!”
“Et puis?” said he, taking a cigar.