“And a terrible eater, moreover.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Why, at one gulp he swallowed all England.”

“Well, Planchet, the evening before the day on which he swallowed England, if any one had swallowed M. Cromwell?”

“Oh, monsieur, it is one of the axioms of mathematics that the container must be greater than the contained.”

“Very well! That is our affair, Planchet.”

“But M. Cromwell is dead, and his container is now the tomb.”

“My dear Planchet, I see with pleasure that you have not only become a mathematician, but a philosopher.”