the clay pots,
administered his consigne, "Courage, ma mie, le---" etc.

She turned on him directly. "How can he be dead as long as there is an
archer left alive?" (General laughter at her ally's expense.)

"It is 'washing day,' my masters," said she, with sudden gravity.

"Apres? We travellers cannot strip and go bare while you wash our
clothes," objected a peevish old fellow by the fireside, who had kept
mumchance during the raillery, but crept out into the sunshine of
commonplaces.

"I aimed not your way, ancient man," replied Marion superciliously. "But
since you ask me" (here she scanned him slowly from head to foot), "I
trow you might take a turn in the tub, clothes and all, and no harm
done" (laughter). "But what I spoke for, I thought this young sire might
like his beard starched."

Poor Gerard's turn had come; his chin crop was thin and silky.

The loudest of all the laughers this time was the traitor Denys, whose
beard was of a good length, and singularly stiff and bristly; so that
Shakespeare, though he never saw him, hit him in the bull's eye.

"Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard."
--As You Like It.

Gerard bore the Amazonian satire mighty calmly. He had little personal
vanity. "Nay, 'chambriere,'" said he, with a smile, "mine is all
unworthy your pains; take you this fair growth in hand!" and he pointed
to Denys's vegetable.

"Oh, time for that, when I starch the besoms."

Whilst they were all shouting over this palpable hit, the mistress
returned, and in no more time than it took her to cross the threshold,
did our Amazon turn to a seeming Madonna meek and mild.

Mistresses are wonderful subjugators. Their like I think breathes not
on the globe. Housemaids, decide! It was a waste of histrionic ability
though; for the landlady had heard, and did not at heart disapprove, the
peals of laughter.

"Ah, Marion, lass," said she good-humouredly, "if you laid me an
egg every time you cackle, 'L'es Trois Poissons' would never lack an
omelet."

"Now, dame," said Gerard, "what is to pay?"

"What for?"

"Our supper."

"Where is the hurry? cannot you be content to pay when you go? lose the
guest, find the money, is the rule of 'The Three Fish.'"

"But, dame, outside 'The Three Fish' it is thus written--'Ici-on ne
loge--"

"Bah! Let that flea stick on the wall! Look hither," and she pointed
to the smoky ceiling, which was covered with hieroglyphics. These were
accounts, vu