ne had chanced, for his misfortune, to
find his way to that wicked wine-house on that wicked evening. There were
differences of nationality among the half-dozen; that was plain enough
from their features and from their speech, for though they all talked, or
thought they talked, in French, each man did his speaking with an accent
that betrayed his nativity. As the babbling voices rose and fell in
alternations of argument that was almost quarrel, narrative that was
sometimes diverting, and ribaldry that was never wit, it would seem as if
the ruffianism of half Europe had called a conference in that squalid,
horrible little inn. Guttural German notes mixed whimsically with
sibilant Spanish and flowing Portuguese. Cracked Biscayan--which no
Spaniard will allow to be Spanish--jarred upon the suavity of Italian
accents, and through the din the heavy steadiness of a Breton voice could
be heard asserting itself. Though every man spoke in French, for the
purposes of the common parliament, each man swore in his own tongue; and
they all swore briskly and crisply, with a seemingly inexhaustible
vocabulary of blasphemy and obscenity, so that the foul air of that inn
parlor was rendered fouler still by the volley of oaths--German, Spanish,
Italian, Portuguese, Biscayan, and Breton--that were fired into its
steaming, stinking atmosphere. So much for the six men that sat at the
table.

The seventh man in the room, although he was of the same fellowship, was
curiously unlike his fellows. While the others were burly, well-set-up
fellows, who held their heads high enough and thrust out their chests
valiantly and sprawled their strong limbs at ease, the seventh man was a
hunchback, short of stature and slender of figure, with a countenance
whose quiet malignity contrasted decisively with the patent brutality of
his comrades. The difference between the one and the others was
accentuated even in dress, for, while the swashbucklers at the table
loved to bedizen themselves with an amount of ferocious finery, and
showed in their sordid garments a quantity of color that likened them to
a bunch of faded wild flowers, the hunchback was clad soberly in black
that was well-worn, indeed, and grizzled at the seams, but neatly
attended. He sat in the window, reading intently in a little volume, and,
again unlike his associates, while he read he nursed between his knees a
long and formidable rapier. Those at the table paid him no heed; most of
them knew