s the frontier for it. You have basted me
with wine! I will baste you after another fashion! On guard! On guard,
and----"

"_What is this?_"

The voice stayed Grio's tongue and checked his foot in the very instant
of assault. The student, watching his blade and awaiting the attack, was
surprised to see his point waver and drop. Was it a trick, he wondered?
A stratagem? No, for a silence fell on the room, while those who held
the floor hastened to efface themselves against the wall, as if they at
any rate had nothing to do with the fracas. And next moment Grio
shrugged his shoulders, and with a half-stifled curse stood back.

"What is this?"

The same question in the same tone. This time the student saw whose
voice it was had stayed Grio's arm. Within the door a pace in front of
two or three attendants, who had displaced the roisterers on the
threshold, appeared a spare dry-looking man of middle height, wearing
his hat, and displaying a gold chain of office across the breast of his
black velvet cloak. In age about sixty, he had nothing that at a first
glance seemed to call for a second: his small pinched features, and the
downward curl of the lip, which his moustache and clipped beard failed
to hide, indicated a nature peevish and severe rather than powerful. On
nearer observation the restless eyes, keen and piercing, asserted
themselves and redeemed the face from insignificance. When, as on this
occasion, their glances were supported by the terrors of the State, it
was not difficult to understand why Messer Blondel, the Syndic, though
no great man to look upon, had both weight with the masses, and a hold
not to be denied over his colleagues in the Council.

No one took on himself to answer the question he had put, and in a voice
thin and querulous, but with a lurking venom in its tone, "What is
this?" the great man repeated, looking from one to another. "Are we in
Geneva, or in Venice? Under the skirts of the scarlet woman, or where
the magistrates bear not the sword in vain? Good Mr. Landlord, are
these your professions? Your bailmen should sleep ill to-night, for they
are likely to answer roundly for this! And whom have we sparking it
here? Brawling and swearing and turning into a profligate's tavern a
place that should be for the sober entertainment of travellers? Whom
have we here--eh! Let me see them! Ah!"

He paused rather suddenly, as his eyes met Grio's: and a little of his
dignity fell from him with the