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198 alone for a single instant. Deign to observe," he added, showing him the clock over their heads, "that I have arrived at one minute to five."

"So those little rascals at the seminary frightened you. It is very good of you to think of them," said the abbé. "But is the road less beautiful because there are thorns in the hedges which border it. Travellers go on their way, and leave the wicked thorns to wait in vain where they are. And now to work my dear friend, to work."

The abbé Chas was right in saying that the task would be arduous. There had been a great funeral ceremony at the cathedral the previous day. They had not been able to make any preparations. They had consequently only one morning for dressing all the Gothic pillars which constitute the three naves with a kind of red damask cloth ascending to a height of thirty feet. The Bishop had fetched by mail four decorators from Paris, but these gentry were not able to do everything, and far from giving any encouragement to the clumsiness of the Besançon colleagues, they made it twice as great by making fun of them.

Julien saw that he would have to climb the ladder himself. His agility served him in good stead. He undertook the direction of the decorators from town. The Abbé Chas was delighted as he watched him flit from ladder to ladder. When all the pillars were dressed in damask, five enormous bouquets of feathers had to be placed on the great baldachin above the grand altar. A rich coping of gilded wood was supported by eight big straight columns of Italian marble, but to reach the centre of the baldachin above the tabernacle involved walking over an old wooden cornice which was forty feet high and possibly worm-eaten.

The sight of this difficult crossing had extinguished the gaiety of the Parisian decorators, which up till then had been so brilliant. They looked at it from down below, argued a great deal, but did not go up. Julien seized hold of the bouquets of feathers and climbed the ladder at a run. He placed it neatly on the crown-shaped ornament in the centre of the baldachin. When he came down the ladder again, the abbé Chas-Bernard embraced him in his arms.

"Optime," exclaimed the good priest, "I will tell this to Monseigneur."