ut I wouldn't have got my own
aunt burned for an Anabaptist, which she wasn't, in order to earn twenty
florins, so there."

Simon turned purple with rage; that aunt story was one which touched him
on the raw. "Ugly----" he began.

Instantly Meg's hand shot out and grasped the neck of a bottle, whereon
he changed his tune.

"The sex, the sex!" he murmured, turning aside to mop his bald head with
a napkin; "well, it's only their pretty way, they will have their little
joke. Hullo, there is someone knocking at the door."

"And mind how you open it," said Meg, becoming alert. "Remember we have
plenty of enemies, and a pike blade comes through a small crack."

"Can you live with the wise and remain a greenhorn? Trust me." And
placing his arm about his spouse's waist, Simon stood on tiptoe and
kissed her gently on the cheek in token of reconciliation, for Meg had a
nasty memory in quarrels. Then he skipped away towards the door as fast
as his bandy legs would carry him.

The colloquy there was long and for the most part carried on through
the keyhole, but in the end their visitor was admitted, a beetle-browed
brute of much the same stamp as his host.

"You are nice ones," he said sulkily, "to be so suspicious about an old
friend, especially when he comes on a job."

"Don't be angry, dear Hans," interrupted Simon in a pleading voice. "You
know how many bad characters are abroad in these rough times; why,
for aught we could tell, you might have been one of these desperate
Lutherans, who stick at nothing. But about the business?"

"Lutherans, indeed," snarled Hans; "well, if they are wise they'd stick
at your fat stomach; but it is a Lutheran job that I have come from The
Hague to talk about."

"Ah!" said Meg, "who sent you?"

"A Spaniard named Ramiro, who has recently turned up there, a humorous
dog connected with the Inquisition, who seems to know everybody and whom
nobody knows. However, his money is right enough, and no doubt he has
authority behind him. He says that you are old friends of his."

"Ramiro? Ramiro?" repeated Meg reflectively, "that means Oarsman,
doesn't it, and sounds like an alias? Well, I've lots of acquaintances
in the galleys, and he may be one of them. What does he want, and what
are the terms?"

Hans leant forward and whispered for a long while. The other two
listened in silence, only nodding from time to time.

"It doesn't seem much for the job," said Simon when Hans had finished.

"