nd hanging's too good for me--with all my heart; but
just you ask the farmer which of us he prefers, just find out which of
us he lies awake to curse on cold nights."

"Look at us two," said his lordship. "I am old, strong, and honoured. If
I were turned from my house to-morrow, hundreds would be proud to
shelter me. Poor people would go out and pass the night in the streets
with their children if I merely hinted that I wished to be alone. And I
find you up, wandering homeless, and picking farthings off dead women by
the wayside! I fear no man and nothing; I have seen you tremble and lose
countenance at a word. I wait God's summons contentedly in my own house,
or, if it please the king to call me out again, upon the field of
battle. You look for the gallows; a rough, swift death, without hope or
honour. Is there no difference between these two?"

"As far as to the moon," Villon acquiesced. "But if I had been born lord
of Brisetout, and you had been the poor scholar Francis, would the
difference have been any the less? Should not I have been warming my
knees at this charcoal pan, and would not you have been groping for
farthings in the snow? Should not I have been the soldier, and you the
thief?"

"A thief!" cried the old man. "I a thief! If you understood your words,
you would repent them."

Villon turned out his hands with a gesture of inimitable impudence. "If
your lordship had done me the honour to follow my argument!" he said.

"I do you too much honour in submitting to your presence," said the
knight. "Learn to curb your tongue when you speak with old and
honourable men, or some one hastier than I may reprove you in a sharper
fashion." And he rose and paced the lower end of the apartment,
struggling with anger and antipathy. Villon surreptitiously refilled his
cup, and settled himself more comfortably in the chair, crossing his
knees and leaning his head upon one hand and the elbow against the back
of the chair. He was now replete and warm; and he was in nowise
frightened for his host, having gauged him as justly as was possible
between two such different characters. The night was far spent, and in
a very comfortable fashion after all; and he felt morally certain of a
safe departure on the morrow.

"Tell me one thing," said the old man, pausing in his walk. "Are you
really a thief?"

"I claim the sacred rights of hospitality," returned the poet. "My lord,
I am."

"You are very young," the knight continued