"Well, call him in," replied Lord Gowrie; and having rung a small bell that stood upon the table, they were joined immediately by the earl's servant. "Get your beaver and your cloak, Austin Jute," said the earl; "we are going out into the streets, and you must follow. Take broadsword and dagger too. I know you can use them well upon occasion. Have you them at hand?" "A good workman never wants tools, my lord," replied the man; "and as to using them, Heaven send the opportunity, and I'll find the means. A man that threads a needle, ought to be able to stitch; and I who have hammered hot iron in my day, should be able to use it cold, though men say practice makes perfect, and I have had but little in your lordship's service. However, what is early learned is long retained; and a hand that is well acquainted with a cudgel remembers its use as well as the back that bears the beating." The earl and his friend both laughed. "There, there," cried Sir John Hume, "in pity's name, good Austin, content yourself with ready-made proverbs, and do not eke them out with your own manufacture." "All as old as the King of Spain's wine, worshipful sir," replied the man; "though all old things are not bad, a new doublet is better than a worn cloak, and proverbs, like lenten pie, may get musty by keeping. I shall have my pinking iron on before your worships are down the stairs; and God send you a safe journey to the bottom, as I shall not be there to take care of you." CHAPTER III. When the Earl of Gowrie had parted from his friend at the door of Hume's lodging, he walked on, followed by his servant, for some four or five hundred yards farther, till the wider and more fashionable street deviated into a number of narrow and somewhat intricate lanes, each, however, having its arcades on either side, with the three or four upper stories of the houses built over them, so that two people might have shaken hands from window to window. At the last house of one of these lanes, where the street terminated at a canal, with a bridge over it leading to the Treviso gate, the young nobleman stopped, and using a great bar of iron which hung upon the door, knocked three times aloud. He had to wait some time, however, before the door was opened, and was just about to knock again, when an old woman, with a lamp in her hand dangling by a long chain, appeared to give him entrance. "How are you, Tita?" he said. "I am sorry to hear that Signor Manucci has been so ill. Can he see me to-night?" "Oh yes, sir; he expects you," replied the woman, "and will go into his own private study to receive you, though the signora thinks it may hurt him."