in
his speech or demeanor; Halfman was more disappointed that the
prisoner took so coldly his laudations of his lady.

"The Roundpoll is so mad to be mastered by a woman that he has not
enough gentility in his thin wits to spur him to a compliment."

His hostile thoughts brewed in his heated brain-pan till their fumes
fevered him. As he led the way by stair and corridor, his mood for
quarrel grew the keener that he knew his choler could find no hope of
ventage with a prisoner committed to his care. And even as he thought
this, chance seemed to furnish him with some occasion for
satisfaction. They were passing by the open door of a room which had
long been used as a place of arms at Harby, and its walls were hung
with weapons of the time and weapons of an earlier generation.
Halfman had passed much time there with the brisker fellows of the
garrison, breaking them in to feats of weapon-play, and he smiled at
the memory and the magnitude of his own dexterity. He paused for a
moment at the threshold and looked round at Evander.

"Here," he said, with a smile that was half a leer and an intonation
that was little less than a sneer--"here is a spot that will scarce
have enough attraction for your worship to merit your worship's
stay."

Evander, who had been following his guide almost mechanically,
enveloped in his own gray reflections, took surprised note of his
companion's changed bearing. Up to now he had been civil enough, even
if his civility had not been of a quality greatly to Evander's
liking, yet now his blustering good-humor gave place to something
akin to deliberate offence. But he might be mistaken, and it was not
for a prisoner to snatch at straws of quarrel. Therefore he
protested, courteously:

"Why should you think that a soldier takes no interest in a soldier's
tools?"

Halfman gave a shrug to his shoulders that might or might not be
intended to annoy.

"Your worship is too raw a soldier to know much of these same tickers
and tappers. Let us rather to the library for volumes of divinity."

This time the intention to affront was so patent, so patent, too,
that Halfman's temper was getting the better of whatever discretion
he possessed, that Evander's face hardened, and yet for his own
reasons he still spoke mildly enough:

"There is no need to call me worship, for I can claim no such title.
But I think I know something of these trinkets, and with your leave
will examine them."

He passed by Hal