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 IV

"When I play a game of cards, on Sunday evening, at the 'Fighting Cock,'" continued the wheelwright, "it is no sooner nine o'clock than the garde-champêtre comes to chuck us out. I desire that whoever shall have his feet on my leathern apron cannot be driven from the place where I shall have spread it."

St. Peter shook his head, and St. Antony, with a solemn air, repeated:

"Don't forget what is best ."

"What is best," replied the wheelwright of Coq, nobly, "is to be the first golfer in the world. Every time I find my master at golf it turns my blood as black as the inside of the chimney. So I want a club that will carry the ball as high as the belfry of Condé, and will infallibly win me my match."

"So be it," said St. Peter.

"You would have done better," said St. Antony, "to have asked for your eternal salvation."

"Bah!" replied the other. "I have plenty of time to think of that; I am not yet greasing my boots for the long journey."

The two saints went out and Roger followed them, curious to be present at such a rare game; but suddenly, near the Chapel of St. Antony, they disappeared.

The wheelwright then went to see the mummers tumbling in the high street of Condé.

When he returned, towards midnight, he found at the comer of his door the desired club. To his great surprise it was only a bad little iron head attached to a [207]