"I remember," said Martin to him, "that the first time I came to
Paris I was likewise taken ill. I was very poor, and accordingly I had
neither friends, nurses, nor physicians, and yet I did very well."
However, by dint of purging and bleeding, Candide's disorder
became very serious. The priest of the parish came with all imaginable
politeness to desire a note of him, payable to the bearer in the other
world. Candide refused to comply with his request; but the two
devotees assured him that it was a new fashion. Candide replied,
that he was not one that followed the fashion. Martin was for throwing
the priest out of the window. The clerk swore Candide should not
have Christian burial. Martin swore in his turn that he would bury the
clerk alive if he continued to plague them any longer. The dispute
grew warm; Martin took him by the shoulders and turned him out of
the room, which gave great scandal, and occasioned a proces-verbal.
Candide recovered, and till he was in a condition to go abroad had a
great deal of good company to pass the evenings with him in his
chamber. They played deep. Candide was surprised to find he could
never turn a trick; and Martin was not at all surprised at the matter.
Among those who did him the honors of the place was a little
spruce abbe of Perigord, one of those insinuating, busy, fawning,
impudent, necessary fellows, that lay wait for strangers on their
arrival, tell them all the scandal of the town, and offer to
minister to their pleasures at various prices.
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