k we shed blood for you and are to be stinted of our liquor!"

"Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" the landlord cried, wringing his hands. "You
will be my ruin!"

"No fear!"

"But I do fear!" the host retorted sharply, going so far as to lay a
hand on his shoulder. "I do fear." Behind the man in green his
boon-fellows, flushed with drink, had gathered, and were staring half
curious, half in alarm into the room. The landlord turned and appealed
to them. "For Heaven's sake get him away quietly!" he muttered. "I shall
lose my living if this be known. And you will suffer too! Gentlemen," he
turned to the party at the table, "this is a quiet house, a quiet house
in general, but----"

"Tut-tut!" said the vintner good-naturedly. "We'll drink a cup with the
gentleman if he wishes it!"

"You'll drink or be pricked!" quoth Messer Grio; he was one of those who
grow offensive in their cups. And while his friends laughed, he swished
out a sword of huge length, and flourished it. "Ca! Ca! Now let me see
any man refuse his liquor!"

The landlord groaned, but thinking apparently that soonest broken was
soonest mended, he vanished, to return in a marvellously short space of
time with four tall glasses and a flask of Neuchatel. "'Tis good wine,"
he muttered anxiously. "Good wine, gentlemen, I warrant you. And Messer
Grio here has served the State, so that some little indulgence----"

"What art muttering?" cried the bully, who spoke French with an accent
new and strange in the student's ears. "Let be! Let be, I say! Let them
drink, or be pricked!"

The merchants and the vintner took their glasses without demur: and,
perhaps, though they shrugged their shoulders, were as willing as they
looked. The young man hesitated, took with a curling lip the glass which
was presented to him, and then, a blush rising to his eyes, pushed it
from him.

"'Tis good wine," the landlord repeated. "And no charge. Drink, young
sir, and----"

"I drink not on compulsion!" the student answered.

Messer Grio stared. "What?" he roared. "You----"

"I drink not on compulsion," the young man repeated, and this time he
spoke clearly and firmly. "Had the gentleman asked me courteously to
drink with him, that were another matter. But----"

"Sho!" the vintner muttered, nudging him in pure kindness. "Drink, man,
and a fico for his courtesy so the wine be old! When the drink is in,
the sense is out, and," lowering his voice, "he'll let you blood to a
certainty, if