w spinning across the floor, while the table
pinned me to the ground among the ruins of my stool. Having me at this
disadvantage--for at first I made no resistance the landlord began to
belabour me with the first thing he snatched up, and when I tried to
defend myself, cursed me with each blow for a treacherous rogue and a
vagrant. Meanwhile the three merchants, delighted with the turn things
had taken, skipped round us laughing, and now hounded him on, now
bantered me with 'how is that for the Duke of Orleans?' and 'How now,
traitor?'

When I thought that this had lasted long enough--or, to speak more
plainly, when I could stand the innkeeper's drubbing no longer--I threw
him off, and struggled to my feet; but still, though the blood was
trickling down my face, I refrained from drawing my sword. I caught
up instead a leg of the stool which lay handy, and, watching my
opportunity, dealt the landlord a shrewd blow under the ear, which laid
him out in a moment on the wreck of his own table.

'Now,' I cried, brandishing my new weapon, which fitted the hand to a
nicety, 'come on! Come on! if you dare to strike a blow, you peddling,
truckling, huckstering knaves! A fig for you and your shaveling
Cardinal!'

The red-faced wine merchant drew his sword in a one-two.

'Why, you drunken fool,' he said wrathfully, 'put that stick down, or I
will spit you like a lark!'

'Lark in your teeth!' I cried, staggering as if the wine were in my
head. 'And cuckoo, too! Another word, and I--'

He made a couple of savage passes at me, but in a twinkling his sword
flew across the room.

'VOILA!' I shouted, lurching forward, as if I had luck and not skill
to thank for my victory. 'Now, the next! Come on, come on--you
white-livered knaves!' And, pretending a drunken frenzy, I flung my
weapon bodily amongst them, and seizing the nearest, began to wrestle
with him.

In a moment they all threw themselves upon me, and, swearing copiously,
bore me back to the door. The wine merchant cried breathlessly to
the woman to open it, and in a twinkling they had me through it, and
half-way across the road. The one thing I feared was a knife-thrust in
the MELEE; but I had to run that risk, and the men were honest, and,
thinking me drunk, indulgent. In a trice I found myself on my back in
the dirt, with my head humming; and heard the bars of the door fall
noisily into their places.

I got up and went to the door, and, to play out my part, hammered o