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Rh immediately subsided: each accepted for courtesy's sake, and sneezed several times. The Bernardine, taking advantage of the intermission, continued:—

"Ah! this tobacco has made great men sneeze! Will you believe me that four times General Dombrowski has taken a pinch from this snuffbox?"

"Dombrowski!" they shouted.

"Yes, yes, he, the general. I was in the camp when he was recapturing Dantzic from the Germans. He had something to write; and, fearing that he might go to sleep, he took a pinch, sneezed, and twice patted me on the back. "Father Robak," he said, "Father Bernardine, perhaps we shall see each other in Lithuania before the year is over. Tell the Lithuanians to receive me with Czenstochowa tobacco; I take none but that.""

The Monk's speech aroused such amazement and such joy that the whole noisy assembly was silent for a moment; then they repeated under their breath the words, "Tobacco from Poland? Czenstochowa? Dombrowski? from the Italian land?" until finally all at once, as if thought had fused with thought and word with word, all cried with one voice, as if a signal had been given: "Dombrowski!" All shouted together, all embraced one another; the peasant and the Tatar count, the prince's hat and the cross, the white rose, the griffin, and the ship; they forgot everything, even the Bernardine; they only sang and shouted: "Brandy, mead, wine!"

Father Robak listened to the song for a long time; finally he wanted to cut it short. So he took in both hands his snuffbox, broke up the melody with a sneeze; and, before they got together again, he hastened to speak thus:—