Nevertheless, a good fair is a profitable asset to an intelligent seigneur. The present fair was instituted seventy years ago by an unusually enterprising lord bishop. He induced the barons of the region to agree to treat visitors to the fair reasonably and to give them protection against robbers. He also established strict regulations to secure for every trader fair play when disposing of his wares, commissioned sergeants to patrol the grounds, and set up a competent provost's court right among the tents, so that persons falling into a dispute could get a quick decision without expensive litigation.[118] In return he laid a small tax on every article sold. The arrangement worked well. Succeeding bishops have been wise enough to realize that contented merchants are more profitable than those that have been plundered. "Hare! Hare!" cry the prelate's sergeants on the first day--announcing the opening--and then for about two weeks the trafficking, bargain driving, amusements, and thimble rigging will continue. [Sidenote: Numerous Commodities at Fairs] The time of a fair is carefully calculated. Many merchants spend all the warmer months journeying with their wares from one fair to another. Many of the traders at Pontdebois have spent half of June at Lendit, where "everything is for sale, from carts and horses to fine tapestries and silver cups." The wares at this present fair are almost equally extensive, although the selection may be a little less choice. Besides all kinds of French products, there are booths displaying wonderful silks from Syria, or possibly only from Venice; there are blazing Saracen carpets woven in Persia or even remoter lands, while local dyers and fullers can stock up with Eastern dyestuffs--lovely red from Damascus, indigo from Jerusalem, and many other colors. You can get beautiful glass vessels made in Syria or imitated from Oriental models in Venice. The monks will buy a quantity of the new paper while they purchase their year's supply of parchment; and Adela will authorize the St. Aliquis cook to obtain many deniers' worth of precious spices--pepper, cinnamon, clove, and the rest essential for seasoning all kinds of dishes, even if their cost is very dear. The spices are sold by a swarthy, hawk-visaged Oriental who speaks French in quaint gutturals, is uncouthly dressed, yet is hardly a Jew. It is whispered he is a downright miscreant--_i.e._, an outrageous Infidel, possibly not even a Mohammedan. Perhaps he is native to those lands close to the rising place of the sun whence come the spices. Ought one to deal with such people? Nevertheless, the spices are desirable and he sells them cheaper than anybody else. There are many other unfamiliar characters at the fair, including a negro mountebank, quite a few Germans from the Rhenish trading cities, and a scattering of so-called Italians, mostly money changers and venders of luxuries, who, however, seem to be really