ing in a porch. She was as dead as Caesar, poor wench, and
as cold as a church, with bits of ribbon sticking in her hair. This is a
hard winter for wolves and wenches and poor rogues like me."

"I," said the old man, "am Enguerrand de la Feuillee, seigneur de
Brisetout, bailie du Patatrac. Who and what may you be?"

Villon rose and made a suitable reverence. "I am called Francis Villon,"
he said, "a poor Master of Arts of this university. I know some Latin,
and a deal of vice. I can make Chansons, ballades, lais, virelais, and
roundels, and I am very fond of wine. I was born in a garret, and I
shall not improbably die upon the gallows. I may add, my lord, that
from this night forward I am your lordship's very obsequious servant to
command."

"No servant of mine," said the knight. "My guest for this evening, and
no more."

"A very grateful guest," said Villon, politely, and he drank in dumb
show to his entertainer.

"You are shrewd," began the old man, tapping his forehead, "very shrewd;
you have learning; you are a clerk; and yet you take a small piece of
money off a dead woman in the street. Is it not a kind of theft?"

"It is a kind of theft much practised in the wars, my lord."

"The wars are the field of honour," returned the old man, proudly.
"There a man plays his life upon the cast; he fights in the name of his
lord the king, his Lord God, and all their lordships the holy saints and
angels."

"Put it," said Villon, "that I were really a thief, should I not play my
life also, and against heavier odds?"

"For gain, but not for honour."

"Gain?" repeated Villon, with a shrug. "Gain! The poor fellow wants
supper, and takes it. So does the soldier in a campaign. Why, what are
all these requisitions we hear so much about? If they are not gain to
those who take them, they are loss enough to the others. The men-at-arms
drink by a good fire, while the burgher bites his nails to buy them wine
and wood. I have seen a good many ploughmen swinging on trees about the
country; ay, I have seen thirty on one elm, and a very poor figure they
made; and when I asked some one how all these came to be hanged, I was
told it was because they could not scrape together enough crowns to
satisfy the men-at-arms."

"These things are a necessity of war, which the low-born must endure
with constancy. It is true that some captains drive overhard; there are
spirits in every rank not easily moved by pity; and indeed many follow
arms