ple artisans and peasants listened with deep and
wondering interest; for he was a traveler and had seen the world--all of
it that lay between Chinon and Domremy, at any rate--and that was a wide
stretch more of it than they might ever hope to see; and he had been
in battle, and knew how to paint its shock and struggle, its perils and
surprises, with an art that was all his own. He was cock of that walk,
hero of that hostelry; he drew custom as honey draws flies; so he was
the pet of the innkeeper, and of his wife and daughter, and they were
his obliged and willing servants.

Most people who have the narrative gift--that great and rare
endowment--have with it the defect of telling their choice things over
the same way every time, and this injures them and causes them to sound
stale and wearisome after several repetitions; but it was not so with
the Paladin, whose art was of a finer sort; it was more stirring and
interesting to hear him tell about a battle the tenth time than it
was the first time, because he did not tell it twice the same way, but
always made a new battle of it and a better one, with more casualties
on the enemy's side each time, and more general wreck and disaster 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 it 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 takin