down in his hole, in despair at being obliged to pass an indefinite time in such an uncomfortable attitude, and in such bad company.

The archdeacon, in the meantime, had not even risen to receive this personage.

He had made the latter a sign to seat himself on a stool near the door, and, after several moments of a silence which appeared to be a continuation of a preceding meditation, he said to him in a rather patronizing way, “Good day, Master Jacques.”

“Greeting, master,” replied the man in black.

There was in the two ways in which “Master Jacques” was pronounced on the one hand, and the “master” by preeminence on the other, the difference between monseigneur and