of the Pigs was there, but no more eager to
fight. The lay brother who had gone with the letter, and the conductor
who had run away from the dread door of the Hall of Justice, had
returned, and had spread a favorable report of our courage.

Certainly the house of Peter the Bishop might be a poor one and scantily
provendered, but there was little sign of it that night. For if the
master went fasting and his guests lived on pulse (as they said in
Thorn), certainly not so Bishop Peter's servants.

For there were pasties of larks, with sauce of butter and herbs, most
excellent and toothsome. There were rabbits from the sand-hills, and
pigeons from the towers of the minster. The clear chill Rhenish vied with
the more generous wine of Burgundy and the red juice of Assmanhauser. For
me, as was natural, I ate little. I spoke not at all. But I looked so
dangerous with my swarthy face and desperate eye, I dare say, also I was
so well armed, that the roysterers left me severely alone.

But I drank--Lord, what did I not drink that night! I poured down my
gullet all and sundry that was given me. And to render these Bishop's
thralls their dues, there was no lack and no inhospitality. But the
strange thing of it was that, though I am a man more than ordinarily
temperate, that night I poured the Rhenish into me like water down a
cistern-pipe and felt it not. God forgive me, I wanted to make me drunken
and forgetful, and lo! the dog's swill would not bite.

So I cursed their drink, and asked if they had no Lyons
Water-of-Life, stark and mordant, or social Hollands, or indeed
anything that was not mere compound of whey and dirty water. Whereat
they wondered, and held me thereafter in great respect as a good
companion and approven worthy drinker.

Then they brought me of the strong spirit of Dantzig, with curious
little flakes of gold dancing in it. It was raw and strong, and at first
I had good hopes of it. But I drank the Dautzig like spring-water, all
there was of it, and though it had a taste singularly displeasing to
me, it took no more effect than so much warm barley-brew for the palates
of babes. Upon this I had great glory. For the card-players and the
dicers actually left their games and gazed open-jawed to see me drink.
And I sat there and expounded the Levitical law and the wheels of the
Prophet Ezekiel, the law of succession to the empire, and also the
apostolic succession--all with surprising clearness and cogency of
re