"You are saying odious things--you insult me," said Pitou. "Have a care that I do not show you up to the National Assembly!"
"Show me up? I will show you up, sirrah! as a failure as a scholar, as a Latinist full of barbarisms, and as a beggar who comes preaching subversive doctrines in order to prey upon your clients."
"I do not prey upon anybody--it is not by _preying_ I live but by work: and as for lowering me in the eyes of my fellow-citizens, know that I have been elected by them commander of the National Guards of Haramont."
"National Guards at Haramont? and you, Pitou, the captain? Abomination of desolation! Such gangs as you would be chief of must be robbers, footpads, bandits, and highwaymen."
"On the contrary, they are organized to defend the home and the fields as well as the life and liberties of all good citizens. That is why we have [illegible]oc me to--for the arms."
"Arms? oh, my museum?" shrieked the schoolmaster. "You come to pillage my arsenal. The armor of the paladins on your ignoble backs. You are mad to want to arm the ragamuffins of Pitou with the swords of the Spaniards and the pikes of the Swiss."
The priest laughed with such disdainful menace that Pitou shuddered in every vein.
"No, father, we do not want the old curiosities, but the thirty marines' guns which you have."
"Avaunt!" said the abbe, taking a step towards the envoy.
"And you shall have the glory of contributing to deliver the country of the oppressors," said Pitou, who took a backward step.
"Furnish weapons against myself and friends," said the other, "give you guns to be fired against myself?" He plucked his scourge from his belt. "Never, never!"
"But your refusal will have a bad effect," pleaded Pitou, retreating, "you will be accused of national treason, and of being no citizen. Do not expose yourself to this, good Father Fortier!"
"Mark me a martyr, eh, Nero? is that what you intend?" roared the priest, with flaring eye and much more resembling the executioner than the victim.
"No, father, I come as a peaceful envoy to----"
"Pillage my house for arms as your friends gutted the Soldiers' Home at Paris."
"We received plenty of praise for that up there," said Ange.
"And you would get plenty of strokes of the whip down here."