"And my waiter thirty sous, besides his perquisites. He is a hantle richer than I am. And then to be insulted as well as pillaged. Last Sunday I went to church. It is a place I trouble not often. Didn't the curé lash the hotel-keepers? I grant you he hit all the trades, except the one that is a byword for looseness, and pride, and sloth, to wit the clergy. But, mind you, he stripeit the other lay estates with a feather, but us hotel-keepers with a neat's pizzle: godless for this, godless for that, and most godless of all for opening our doors during mass. Why the law forces us to open at all hours to travellers from another town, stopping, halting, or passing: those be the words. They can fine us before the bailiff if we refuse them, mass or no mass: and, say a townsman should creep in with the true travellers, are we to blame? They all vow they are tired wayfarers; and can I ken every face in a great town like this? So if we respect the law our poor souls are to suffer, and if we respect it not, our poor lank purses must bleed at two holes, fine and loss of custom." A man speaking of himself in general, is "a babbling brook;" of his wrongs, "a shining river." "Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum." So luckily for my readers, though not for all concerned, this injured orator was arrested in mid career. Another man burst in upon his wrongs with all the advantage of a recent wrong; a wrong red hot. It was Denys cursing and swearing and crying that he was robbed. "Did those hussies pass this way? who are they? where do they bide? They have ta'en my purse and fifteen golden pieces: raise the hue and cry! ah! traitresses! vipers! These inns are all guetapens." "There now," cried the landlord to Gerard. Gerard implored him to be calm and say how it had befallen. "First one went out on some pretence: then after a while the other went to fetch her back, and, neither returning, I clapped hand to purse and found it empty: the ungrateful creatures, I was letting them win it in a gallop: but loaded dice were not quick enough; they must claw it all in a lump." Gerard was for going at once to the alderman and setting the officers to find them. "Not I," said Denys. "I hate the law. No: as it came so let it go." Gerard would not give if up so. At a hint from the landlord he forced Denys along with him to the provost-marshal. That dignitary shook his head. "We have no clue to occasional thieves, that work honestly at their needles, till some gull comes and tempts them with an easy booty, and then they pluck him." "Come away," cried Denys furiously. "I knew what use a bourgeois would be to me at a pinch:" and he marched off in a rage. "They are clear of the town ere this," said Gerard.