e sleeve and drew aside for a secret
talk.

"Now the fines and forfeits exacted by the King of Youth during his
festival were always paid in wine--a pail of wine apiece from the newest
married couple in the Viscounty, a pail of wine from anyone proved to have
cut or plucked so much as a leaf from the great elm-tree in the place, a
pail for damaging the Maypole, or stumbling in the dance, or hindering any
of the processions. 'We have granted this favour to our youth,' says the
charter, 'because, having been witness of their merrymaking, we have taken
great pleasure and satisfaction therein.' You may guess, then, that in
one way and another the King and his seneschals accumulated good store of
wine by the end of the festival, when they shared it among the populace in
a great carouse; nor were they held too strictly to account for the
justice of particular fines by which the whole commonalty profited.

"This Tibbald, then, having drawn the King aside, began cautiously and
anfractuously and _per ambages_ to unfold his plan. He had brought with
him (said he) on muleback twelve half-hogsheads of right excellent wine
which he had picked up as a bargain in the Rhone Valley. The same he had
smuggled into Ambialet after dusk, covering his mules' panniers with
cloths and skins of Damas and Alexandria, and it now lay stored in the
stables at the back of his inn. This excellent wine (which in truth was
an infamous _tisane_ of the last pressings, and had never been nearer the
Rhone than Caylus) he proposed to barter secretly for that collected
during the feast, and to pay the King of Youth, moreover, a bribe of one
livre in money on every hogshead exchanged. The populace (he promised)
would be too well drunken to discover the trick; or, if they detected any
difference in the wine would commend it as better and stronger than
ordinary.

"The King of Youth, perceiving that he had to deal with a knave, pretended
to agree, but stipulated that he must first taste the wine; whereupon the
merchant gave him to taste some true Rhone wine which he carried in a
leather bottle at his belt. 'If the cask answer to the sample,' said the
King, 'Ambialet is well off.' 'By a good bargain,' said Tibbald.
'Nay, by a godsend,' said the King; and, stepping back into the
torchlight, he called to his officers to arrest the knave and hold him
bound, while the seneschals went off to search the inn stables.

"The seneschals returned by and by, trund