that--but I'm not a devil from
hell, God strike me dead. I would have you to know I've an honor of my
own, as good as yours, though I don't prate about it all day long, as
if it were a God's miracle to have any. It seems quite natural to me;
I keep it in its box till it's wanted. Why now, look you here, how
long have I been in this room with you? Did you not tell me you were
alone in the house? Look at your gold plate! You're strong, if you
like, but you're old and unarmed, and I have my knife. What did I want
but a jerk of the elbow, and here would have been you with the cold
steel in your bowels, and there would have been me, linking in the
streets, with an armful of gold cups! Did you suppose I hadn't wit
enough to see that? And I scorned the action. There are your damned
goblets, as safe as in a church; there are you, with your heart
ticking as good as new; and here am I, ready to go out again as poor
as I came in, with my one white that you threw in my teeth! And you
think I have no sense of honor--God strike me dead!"

The old man stretched out his right arm. "I will tell you what
you are," he said. "You are a rogue, my man, an impudent and a
black-hearted rogue and vagabond. I have passed an hour with you. Oh!
believe me, I feel myself disgraced! And you have eaten and drank at
my table. But now I am sick at your presence; the day has come, and
the night-bird should be off to his roost. Will you go before, or
after?"

"Which you please," returned the poet, rising. "I believe you to be
strictly honorable." He thoughtfully emptied his cup. "I wish I could
add you were intelligent," he went on, knocking on his head with his
knuckles. "Age, age! the brains stiff and rheumatic."

The old man preceded him from a point of self-respect; Villon
followed, whistling, with his thumbs in his girdle.

"God pity you," said the lord of Brisetout at the door.

"Good-bye, papa," returned Villon, with a yawn. "Many thanks for the
cold mutton."

The door closed behind him. The dawn was breaking over the white
roofs. A chill, uncomfortable morning ushered in the day. Villon stood
and heartily stretched himself in the middle of the road.

"A very dull old gentleman," he thought. "I wonder what his goblets
may be worth."

INDEX

Aesop
beast-fables
Apuleius
_The Golden Ass_
likeness to Kipling
Aristotle
_Secretum Secretorum_

Barrett, Charles Raymond
_Short-Story Writings_
Beast-f