"When clod-hoppers and such scum mingle with their betters," he bawled out, "one of us must retire from the foul contamination. But this I tell you, the first of you that budges, or even growls, I'll break every bone in his skin." The peasants, whether alarmed by his drunken fury, or perhaps only unwilling to incense him still more, drew back to their table. Conrad seated himself, after all the victories he had achieved, majestically in his armchair again, and rolled his eyes round with a look of defiance. As nobody uttered a word, he said with a loud voice: "Look ye, fellow miners, I am one of the oldest men about the works here above; see here, comrades, and ye ragamuffins there, host and peasants I mean, these dollars my prince and lord has gained from our pit." He threw a handful of silver on the table. "And old as I am, fellows, I was born and bred here in the mountains, and I never yet crawled down into the vallies and the plain. I can boast (and very few can say as much) I never yet saw any grain in the field, never yet saw corn growing or ripe atop of its pitiful straw. We work in gold and silver, are expert in mysteries and deep lore, hew blocks, amalgamate metals, fuse ores,--and the miserable louts there have to go about, as people have told me, hand and glove with rank dung, and to carry the stinking stuff into the fields and spread it out; and therefore I have a right to look upon their foul frocks as scandalous and vile; at all events no miner should ever shake hands with 'em, or drink out of the same mug. I am determined too to die a man of honour, as I have grown old, without ever setting foot under their thatch roofs, or on their threshing-floors; I have preserved myself four and fifty years from this disgrace, and heaven will continue to guard me from it while I live." Thus he went on prating, till at length he was so stupefied and exhausted that he fell asleep. The peasants, who now felt still sorelier affronted than before, had more than once cast significant looks on their cudgels. With these feelings they listened the more readily to the advice of the stranger, who had been washing himself in the meanwhile, to lift their insolent enemy, as he was fast asleep and seemed quite senseless, upon the top of one of their waggons, and to lay him, when they got to the bottom, in a corn field, that he might find himself there when he awoke from his fit. There was no difficulty in doing this, as the musicians had been paid and were gone, and the landlord was busied in the kitchen. * * * * *