eminine dexterity to his doublet, and
his mind, and heart, and soul were away to Sevenbergen.

They reached the promised land, and Denys, who was in high spirits,
doffed his bonnet to all the females; who curtsied and smiled in return;
fired his consigne at most of the men; at which some stared, some
grinned, some both; and finally landed his friend at one of the
long-promised Burgundian inns.

"It is a little one," said he, "but I know it of old for a good one;
Les Trois Poissons.' But what is this writ up? I mind not this;" and he
pointed to an inscription that ran across the whole building in a single
line of huge letters. "Oh, I see. 'Ici on loge a pied et a cheval,'"
said Denys, going minutely through the inscription, and looking
bumptious when he had effected it.

Gerard did look, and the sentence in question ran thus:

"ON NE LOGE CEANS A CREDIT; CE BONHOMME EST MORT, LES MAUVAIS PAIEURS
L'ONT TUE."

CHAPTER XXXIII

They met the landlord in the passage.

"Welcome, messieurs," said he, taking off his cap, with a low bow.

"Come, we are not in Germany," said Gerard.

In the public room they found the mistress, a buxom woman of forty. She
curtsied to them, and smiled right cordially "Give yourself the trouble
of sitting ye down, fair sir," said she to Gerard, and dusted two chairs
with her apron, not that they needed it.

"Thank you, dame," said Gerard. "Well," thought he, "this is a polite
nation: the trouble of sitting down? That will I with singular patience;
and presently the labour of eating, also the toil of digestion, and
finally, by Hercules his aid, the strain of going to bed, and the
struggle of sinking fast asleep.

"Why, Denys, what are you doing? ordering supper for only two?"

"Why not?"

"What, can we sup without waiting for forty more? Burgundy forever!"

"Aha! Courage, camarade. Le dia--"

"C'est convenu."

The salic law seemed not to have penetrated to French inns. In this one
at least wimple and kirtle reigned supreme; doublets and hose were few
in number, and feeble in act. The landlord himself wandered objectless,
eternally taking off his cap to folk for want of thought; and the women,
as they passed him in turn, thrust him quietly aside without looking at
him, as we remove a live twig in bustling through a wood.

A maid brought in supper, and the mistress followed her, empty handed.

"Fall to, my masters," said she cheerily; "y'have but one enemy here;
and he lies und