tating him upon the baron, who instantly,
with the "equal foot" of fate, kicked him and the dog into a corner.

"And whence came you last?" asked the baron, disregarding the little
contretemps, and throwing himself heavily on an oaken settle, while
he pushed a queer, uncomfortable-looking stool, with legs like a
Siamese-twin-connected double X, towards his companion.

Mr. Clinch, who had quite given himself up to fate, answered
mechanically,--

"Paris."

The baron winked his eye with unutterable, elderly wickedness. "Ach
Gott! it is nothing to what it was when I was your age. Ah! there was
Manon,--Sieur Manon we used to call her. I suppose she's getting old
now. How goes on the feud between the students and the citizens? Eh? Did
you go to the bal in la Cite?"

Mr. Clinch stopped the flow of those Justice-Shallow-like reminiscences
by an uneasy exclamation. He was thinking of the maiden who had
disappeared so suddenly. The baron misinterpreted his nervousness. "What
ho, within there!--Max, Wolfgang,--lazy rascals! Bring some wine."

At the baleful word Mr. Clinch started to his feet. "Not for me! Bring
me none of your body-and-soul-destroying poison! I've enough of it!"

The baron stared. The servitors stared also.

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Clinch, recalling himself slowly; "but I
fear that Rhine wine does not agree with me."

The baron grinned. Perceiving, however, that the three servitors grinned
also, he kicked two of them into obscurity, and felled the third to
the floor with his fist. "Hark ye, nephew," he said, turning to the
astonished Clinch, "give over this nonsense! By the mitre of Bishop
Hatto, thou art as big a fool as he!"

"Hatto," repeated Clinch mechanically. "What! he of the Mouse Tower?"

"Ay, of the Mouse Tower!" sneered the baron. "I see you know the story."

"Why am I like him?" asked Mr. Clinch in amazement.

The baron grinned. "HE punished the Rhenish wine as thou dost, without
judgment. He had--"

"The jim-jams," said Mr. Clinch mechanically again.

The baron frowned. "I know not what gibberish thou sayest by 'jim-jams';
but he had, like thee, the wildest fantasies and imaginings; saw snakes,
toads, rats, in his boots, but principally rats; said they pursued him,
came to his room, his bed--ach Gott!"

"Oh!" said Mr. Clinch, with a sudden return to his firmer self and his
native inquiring habits; "then THAT is the fact about Bishop Hatto of
the story?"

"His enemies made i