squash nose and slobbering lips: he had become a thief, just as he

might have become the most decent of burgesses, by the imperious

chance that rules the lives of human geese and human donkeys.

At the monk's other hand, Montigny and Thevenin Pensete played a

game of chance. About the first there clung some flavour of good

birth and training, as about a fallen angel; something long, lithe,

and courtly in the person; something aquiline and darkling in the

face. Thevenin, poor soul, was in great feather: he had done a

good stroke of knavery that afternoon in the Faubourg St. Jacques,

and all night he had been gaining from Montigny. A flat smile

illuminated his face; his bald head shone rosily in a garland of

red curls; his little protuberant stomach shook with silent

chucklings as he swept in his gains.

"Doubles or quits?" said Thevenin. Montigny nodded grimly.

"Some may prefer to dine in state," wrote Villon, "On bread and

cheese on silver plate. Or - or - help me out, Guido!"

Tabary giggled.

"Or parsley on a golden dish," scribbled the poet.

The wind was freshening without; it drove the snow before it, and

sometimes raised its voice in a victorious whoop, and made

sepulchral grumblings in the chimney. The cold was growing sharper

an the night went on. Villon, protruding his lips, imitated the

gust with something between a whistle and a groan. It was an

eerie, uncomfortable talent of the poet's, much detested by the

Picardy monk.

"Can't you hear it rattle in the gibbet?" said Villon. "They are

all dancing the devil's jig on nothing, up there. You may dance,

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