"Umph!" the vintner muttered, looking from one to the other with a humorous eye. "It seems to me that the Venerable Company of Pastors have not yet expelled the old Adam." Open flew the door and cut short the word. But it had been heard, "Pastors?" a raucous voice cried. "Passers and Flinchers is what I call them!" And a stout heavy man, whose small pointed grey beard did but emphasise the coarse virility of the face above it, appeared on the threshold, glaring at the four. "Pastors?" he repeated defiantly. "Passers and Flinchers, I say!" "In Heaven's name, Messer Grio!" the landlord protested, hovering at his shoulder, "these are strangers----" "Strangers? Ay, and flinchers, they too!" the intruder retorted, heedless of the remonstrance. And he lurched into the room, a bulky, reeling figure in stained green and tarnished lace. "Four flinchers! But I'll make them drink a cup with me or I'll prick their hides! Do you think we shed blood for you and are to be stinted of our liquor!" "Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" the landlord cried, wringing his hands. "You will be my ruin!" "No fear!" "But I do fear!" the host retorted sharply, going so far as to lay a hand on his shoulder. "I do fear." Behind the man in green his boon-fellows, flushed with drink, had gathered, and were staring half curious, half in alarm into the room. The landlord turned and appealed to them. "For Heaven's sake get him away quietly!" he muttered. "I shall lose my living if this be known. And you will suffer too! Gentlemen," he turned to the party at the table, "this is a quiet house, a quiet house in general, but----" "Tut-tut!" said the vintner good-naturedly. "We'll drink a cup with the gentleman if he wishes it!" "You'll drink or be pricked!" quoth Messer Grio; he was one of those who grow offensive in their cups. And while his friends laughed, he swished out a sword of huge length, and flourished it. "Ca! Ca! Now let me see any man refuse his liquor!" The landlord groaned, but thinking apparently that soonest broken was soonest mended, he vanished, to return in a marvellously short space of time with four tall glasses and a flask of Neuchatel. "'Tis good wine," he muttered anxiously. "Good wine, gentlemen, I warrant you. And Messer Grio here has served the State, so that some little indulgence----" "What art muttering?" cried the bully, who spoke French with an accent new and strange in the student's ears. "Let be! Let be, I say! Let them drink, or be pricked!" The merchants and the vintner took their glasses without demur: and, perhaps, though they shrugged their shoulders, were as willing as they looked. The young man hesitated, took with a curling lip the glass which was presented to him, and then, a blush rising to his eyes, pushed it from him. "'Tis good wine," the landlord repeated. "And no charge. Drink, young sir, and----" "I drink not on compulsion!" the student answered. Messer Grio stared. "What?" he roared. "You----"