ossy as a mole, lay flat on his stomach in the
afternoon sun, and looked an enormous lizard. His velvet cloak (flaming
yellow) was carefully spread over the horse's loins.

"Is aught amiss?" inquired Gerard.

"Not that I wot of," replied one of the servants.

"But your master, he lies like a corpse. Are ye not ashamed to let him
grovel on the ground?"

"Go to; the bare ground is the best cure for his disorder. If you get
sober in bed, it gives you a headache; but you leap up from the hard
ground like a lark in spring. Eh, Ulric?"

"He speaks sooth, young man," said Ulric warmly.

"What, is the gentleman drunk?"

The servants burst into a hoarse laugh at the simplicity of Gerard's
question. But suddenly Ulric stopped, and eyeing him all over, said very
gravely, "Who are you, and where born, that know not the Count is ever
drunk at this hour?" And Gerard found himself a suspected character.

"I am a stranger," said he, "but a true man, and one that loves
knowledge; therefore ask I questions, and not for love of prying."

"If you be a true man," said Ulric shrewdly, "then give us trinkgeld for
the knowledge we have given you."

Gerard looked blank, but putting a good face on it, said, "Trinkgeld you
shall have, such as my lean purse can spare, an if you will tell me why
ye have ta'en his cloak from the man and laid it on the beast."

Under the inspiring influence of coming trinkgeld, two solutions were
instantly offered Gerard at once: the one was, that should the Count
come to himself (which, being a seasoned toper, he was apt to do all
in a minute), and find his horse standing sweating in the cold, while
a cloak lay idle at hand, he would fall to cursing, and peradventure
to laying on; the other, more pretentious, was, that a horse is a poor
milksop, which, drinking nothing but water, has to be cockered up and
warmed outside; but a master, being a creature ever filled with good
beer, has a store of inward heat that warms him to the skin, and renders
a cloak a mere shred of idle vanity.

Each of the speakers fell in love with his theory, and, to tell the
truth, both had taken a hair or two of the dog that had bitten their
master to the brain; so their voices presently rose so high, that the
green sot began to growl instead of snoring. In their heat they did not
notice this.

Ere long the argument took a turn that sooner or later was pretty sure
to enliven a discussion in that age. Hans, holding the bridle w