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86 silence, "because at half-past nine they will come here with a horse to take me away. It will be necessary to ask the archpriest or the chaplain to lend me a suit of clothes."

"Let me, let me!" exclaimed the professor, full of zeal. "I will go home and send it to you immediately. You will give it back to me at your leisure, when you are able." A lively gratitude cleared the face and moved the eyelids of Don Rocco.

"Thanks!" said he, fixing his eyes humbly on the end of his nose. "Thank you very much!"

"Body of Bacchus!" he added to himself, as the professor was going down the stairs. "He is a span higher than I am, that just occurs to me!"

But it certainly did not occur to him to call him back.

half-past nine Don Rocco appeared in the doorway of his house to start on his exodus. The overcoat of the professor danced around his heels and swallowed up his hands down to his finger tips. The stove-pipe hat, of enormous size, came down to his ears. The professor followed right behind him, laughing silently. In the courtyard some people attracted by the report of what had happened were laughing. "Oh,