"Not hungry?" And the soldier, who seemed a little the worse for liquor, but more friendly in consequence, walked in. "I don't wonder, though," he went on, closing the door, hanging his lantern above and placing the jug on the ground; "in such a foul hole! What you need, comrade, is company, and," touching significantly his breast, "something warmer than flows from the spring of St. Aubert." "I tell you," began the mountebank, when the soldier, staring, got a fair look at the other for the first time and started back. "Eh? What's this?" "Oh, I took them off! You don't suppose I'd sleep in my white clothes in such a dirty--" "Right you are, comrade!" returned the other, seating himself before the door on a three-legged stool he found in a corner. "But for the moment you gave me a start. I thought you some other person." "What--person?" "No one in particular. You might," unbuttoning his coat to draw forth a bottle, "have been any one! But I dare say you have had them off in worse places than this--which, after all, is not bad, compared to some of the rooms for guests at the Mount!" "You mean?" The mountebank looked first at the closed blinds; then at the door, and a sudden determination came to his eyes. "Those especially prepared for the followers of the Black Seigneur, taken prisoners near Casque, for example!" "They are dungeons?" "With Jacques for keeper! The little sexton, we call him, because the prisoners go generally from the cells to the pit, and the quicklime is the hunchback's graveyard!" "This Jacques--" A growing impatience shone ominously from the prisoner's glance; his attention, that of a man straining to catch some expected sound without, focused itself on the speaker. "This Jacques--what sort of quarters has he?" "Oh, he lives anywhere; everywhere! Sometimes at the thieves' inn; again in one of the storehouses near the wheel. They say, though, he is not a great hand to sleep, but passes most of his time like a cat, prowling in and out the black passages and tunnels of the Mount. But," abruptly breaking off, "the play--that's what I want to know about! The end! How did it end?" "I'm in no mood for talking." "Take the bottle, an' it'll loosen your tongue!" "No." "What! you refuse?" "Yes." "Then," philosophically, "must I drink alone." "Not here!" "Eh?" "Will you get out, or--" and the mountebank stepped toward the other with apparently undisguised intention. "So that's your game?" Quickly the soldier sprang to his feet. "I must teach you a little politeness, my friend--how we deal with uncivil people in the army!" And throwing off his coat, as ready for a bout at fisticuffs as for an encounter of words, the soldier confronted the clown. "When I'm done, you'll sing that song of the stick out of the other side of the mouth, and think your wicked peasant received a coddling from his master in comparison!"