oundels, 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 who are no better than brigands."

"You see," said the poet, "you cannot separate the soldier from the
brigand; and what is a thief but an isolated brigand with circumspect
manners? I steal a couple of mutton chops, without so much as disturbing
people's sleep; the farmer grumbles a bit, but sups none the less
wholesomely on what remains. You come up blowing gloriously on a
trumpet, take away the whole sheep, and beat the farmer pitifully into
the bargain. I have no trumpet; I am only Tom, Dick, or Harry; I am a
rogue and a dog, a