ay, comrade. Fling a byword or two at our heads. Know, girls,
that he is a very Solomon for bywords. Methinks he was brought up by
hand on 'em."

"Be thy friendship a byword!" retorted Gerard. "The friendship that
melts to nought at sight of a farthingale."

"Malheureux!" cried Denys, "I speak but pellets, and thou answerest
daggers."

"Would I could," was the reply. "Adieu."

"What a little savage!" said one of the girls.

Gerard opened the door and put in his head. "I have thought of a
byword," said he spitefully--

"Qui hante femmes et dez
Il mourra en pauvretez.

"There." And having delivered this thunderbolt of antique wisdom, he
slammed the door viciously ere any of them could retort.

And now, being somewhat exhausted by his anxieties, he went to the bar
for a morsel of bread and a cup of wine. The landlord would sell nothing
less than a pint bottle. Well then he would have a bottle; but when he
came to compare the contents of the bottle with its size, great was the
discrepancy: on this he examined the bottle keenly, and found that
the glass was thin where the bottle tapered, but towards the bottom
unnaturally thick. He pointed this out at once.

The landlord answered superciliously that he did not make bottles: and
was nowise accountable for their shape.

"That we will see presently," said Gerard. "I will take this thy pint to
the vice-bailiff."

"Nay, nay, for Heaven's sake," cried the landlord, changing his tone at
once. "I love to content my customers. If by chance this pint be short,
we will charge it and its fellow three sous insteads of two sous each."

"So be it. But much I admire that you, the host of so fair an inn,
should practise thus. The wine, too, smacketh strongly of spring water."

"Young sir," said the landlord, "we cut no travellers' throats at this
inn, as they do at most. However, you know all about that, 'The White
Hart' is no lion, nor bear. Whatever masterful robbery is done here, is
done upon the poor host. How then could he live at all if he dealt not a
little crooked with the few who pay?"

Gerard objected to this system root and branch. Honest trade was small
profits, quick returns; and neither to cheat nor be cheated.

The landlord sighed at this picture. "So might one keep an inn in
heaven, but not in Burgundy. When foot soldiers going to the wars are
quartered on me, how can I but lose by their custom? Two sous per day is
their pay, and they eat two sous