it," the innkeeper's fat voice answered.
"You've surely not been deaf to the gossip that's going about! How my
Lord Farquhart's going to marry his cousin, old Gordon's daughter, the
Lady Barbara Gordon, and with her, old Gordon's gold. The whole of
London's ringing with it."

"Ay, perhaps, my good Marmaduke, but I'm not in London much of the
time, so London's stalest gossip is news to me." The end of this
sentence was muffled in the folds of her riding skirt that she was
drawing off over her head, and the landlord of The Jolly Grig took
occasion to soliloquize:

"Indeed, if it's not mischief the lad's bent on, it's nothing good,
I'll be bound. Whatever he swears, he's good for naught save mischief.
And I'll swear, too, that it's less than a fortnight since he was
drinking wine here, in this very place. Though, I must say, to his
credit, he's a temperate fellow, and drinks less than any man of his
size that comes here."

"That's just it! It's a man of my own size that I'm after."

Marmaduke's guest, now a youth in riding coat and breeches, was seated
in the deep chair that faced his host. "A man of my own size, and
that's not so far under six feet high, and with a good girth about the
chest, and but small paunch under it, and muscles like iron, as you've
occasion to know; a man of my own size, to drink with me and sup with
me and love with me and fight with me, if we happen to love the same
girl. Put off your blindman's kerchief and fetch the wine I spoke for.
What's the best your house affords, my jolly grig? What wine will you
offer this Lord Farquhart? What wine have you fit to serve to his
lady?"

"I' faith, I know not my Lord Farquhart's taste," answered Marmaduke.
"But I've a royal port, lately brought over from France. I've a Canary
Malmsey that his majesty himself'd find hard to despise. And then,
why, I've a few bottles of Geldino's sherris that--that I'll not open
save on the rarest occasion. I'll bring you the port, if you say so,
though, to my seeming, port is a heady wine for a lad like you."

"Well, then, the port let it be," answered the youth. "I judge my
wines by the taste, not by the name." When the wine was brought, he
raised his cup with a swaggering laugh. "To the girls you _have_
loved. To the girls I _will_ love." He emptied the cup at a single
draught. "There are two times when a long throat is a good throat;
when you're wetting it, and when you're cutting it. I'd have another,
but I'm--I