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No Finance Minister or Royal Intendant studied more earnestly the problem how to tax the kingdom than Max and Blind Bartemy how to toll the passers-by, and with less success, perhaps. To-day was a red-letter day for the sturdy beggars, for the news flew fast that an ovation of some popular kind was to be given to the Bourgeois Philibert.
After an hour's roystering at the Fleur-de-Lis the party of gentlemen returned to the Taverne de Menut a good deal more unsteady and more obstreperous than when they came. They left Master Pothier seated in his chair, drunk as Bacchus, and every one of the rest of his companions blind as Bartemy. The gentlemen, on their return to the Taverne de Menut, found De Pean in a rage.
At the head of the table sat Master Pothier, with a black earthen mug of Norman cider in one hand and a pipe in the other. His budget of law hung on a peg in the corner, as quite superfluous at a free-and-easy at the Fleur-de-Lis. Max Grimeau and Blind Bartemy had arrived in good time for the eel pie.
Max had seen plenty of the world when he marched under Marshal de Belleisle, so he was at no loss for apt comparisons. "Yes!" replied Blind Bartemy, holding out his hand to be shaken. "I see by your voice, Master Pothier, that you have not said grace over bare bones during your absence. But where have you been this long time?"
Max Grimau and Blind Bartemy had ceased counting their coins. The passers-by came up in still increasing numbers, until the street, from the barrier of the Basse Ville to the Cathedral, was filled with a noisy, good-humored crowd, without an object except to stare at the Golden Dog and a desire to catch a glimpse of the Bourgeois Philibert.
"Oh, the cursed luck is every day mine!" replied Master Pothier, clapping his hands upon his stomach. "I would not have missed that Easter pie no, not to draw the Pope's will! "Well, never mind, Master Pothier," replied Max. "Don't grieve; you shall go with us to-night to the Fleur-de-Lis in the Sault au Matelot. Bartemy and I have bespoken an eel pie and a gallon of humming cider of Normandy.
He was greeted warmly by the old mendicants. "Sure as my old musket it is Master Pothier, and nobody else!" exclaimed Max Grimeau rising, and giving the newcomer a hearty embrace. "Don't you see, Bartemy? He has been foraging among the fat wives of the south shore. What a cheek he blows red as a peony, and fat as a Dutch Burgomaster!"
"Well, never mind what they say in the Nivernois about the calves of my legs! Bon coq ne fut jamais gras! a game-cock is never fat and that is Master Pothier dit Robin. Lean as are my calves, they will carry away as much of your eel pie to-night as those of the stoutest carter in Quebec!" "And the pie is baked by this time; so let us be jogging!" interrupted Bartemy, rising.
We beggars save more souls than the Cure; for we are always exhorting men to charity. I think we ought to be part of Holy Church as well as the Gray Friars." "And so we are part of Holy Church, Bartemy!" interrupted Max Grimeau. "When the good Bishop washed twelve pair of our dirty feet on Maunday Thursday in the Cathedral, I felt like an Apostle I did!
The crowd kept increasing in the Rue Buade. The two sturdy beggars who vigorously kept their places on the stone steps of the barrier, or gateway, of the Basse Ville reaped an unusual harvest of the smallest coin Max Grimau, an old, disabled soldier, in ragged uniform, which he had worn at the defence of Prague under the Marshal de Belleisle, and blind Bartemy, a mendicant born the former, loud-tongued and importunate, the latter, silent and only holding out a shaking hand for charity.
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