saster all around,
and more widows and orphans and suffering in the neighborhood where it
happened. He could not tell his battles apart himself, except by their
names; and by the time he had told one of then ten times it had grown so
that there wasn't room enough in France for it any more, but was lapping
over the edges. But up to that point the audience would not allow him to
substitute a new battle, knowing that the old ones were the best, and
sure to improve as long as France could hold them; and so, instead of
saying to him as they would have said to another, "Give us something
fresh, we are fatigued with that old thing," they would say, with one
voice and with a strong interest, "Tell about the surprise at Beaulieu
again--tell in three or four times!" That is a compliment which few
narrative experts have heard in their lifetime.

At first when the Paladin heard us tell about the glories of the Royal
Audience he was broken-hearted because he was not taken with us to it;
next, his talk was full of what he would have done if he had been there;
and within two days he was telling what he did do when he was there. His
mill was fairly started, now, and could be trusted to take care of its
affair. Within three nights afterward all his battles were taking a rest,
for already his worshipers in the tap-room were so infatuated with the
great tale of the Royal Audience that they would have nothing else, and
so besotted with it were they that they would have cried if they could
not have gotten it.

Noel Rainguesson hid himself and heard it, and came and told me, and
after that we went together to listen, bribing the inn hostess to let us
have her little private parlor, where we could stand at the wickets in
the door and see and hear.

The tap-room was large, yet had a snug and cozy look, with its inviting
little tables and chairs scattered irregularly over its red brick floor,
and its great fire flaming and crackling in the wide chimney. It was a
comfortable place to be in on such chilly and blustering March nights as
these, and a goodly company had taken shelter there, and were sipping
their wine in contentment and gossiping one with another in a neighborly
way while they waited for the historian. The host, the hostess, and their
pretty daughter were flying here and there and yonder among the tables
and doing their best to keep up with the orders. The room was about forty
feet square, and a space or aisle down the center of i