I did not wake until the pale sun of that January morning was drawing the pattern of my lattice on the ceiling. The stormy night had been succeeded by a calm and sunlit day. And by its light the place wore a more loathsome look than it had done last night, so that at the very sight of it I leapt from my couch and grew eager to be gone. I set a ducat on the table, and going to the door I called my hostess. The stairs creaked presently ’neath her portentous weight, and, panting slightly, she stood before me. At sight of me, for I was without my cloak, and my motley was revealed in the cold, morning light, she cried out in amazement first, and then in rage—deeming me one of those parasites who tramp the world in the garb of folly, seeking here a dinner, there a bed, in exchange for some scurvy tumbling or some witless jests. “Ossa di Cristo!” was her cry. “Have I housed a Fool?” “If I am the first you have housed, your tumbling ruin of a tavern has been a singularly choice resort. Woman—” “Would you ‘woman’ me?” she stormed. “Why, no,” said I politely. “I was at fault. I’ll keep the title for your husband—God help him!” She smiled grimly. “And are these,” she asked, with a ferocious sarcasm, “the jests with which you pay the score?” “Jests?” quoth I. “Score? Pish! More eyes, less tongue would more befit a hostess who has never housed a fool.” And with a splendid gesture I pointed to the ducat gleaming on the table. At sight of the gold her eyes grew big with greed. “My master—” she began, and coming forward took the piece in her hand, to assure herself that she was not the dupe of magic. “A fool with gold!” she marvelled. “Is a shame to his calling,” I acknowledged. Then—“Get me a needle and a length of thread,” said I. She scuttled off to do my bidding, like nothing so much as one of the rats that tenanted her unclean sty. She was back in a moment, all servility, and wondering whether there was a rent about me she might make bold to stitch. What a key to courtesy is gold, my masters! I drove her out, and eager to conciliate me, she went at once. With my own hands I effected in my doublet the slight repair of which it stood in need. Then I donned my hat, and, cloak on shoulder, made my way below, calling for my horse as I descended. I scorned the wine they proffered me ere I departed. That last night’s draught had quenched my thirst for ever of such grape-juice as it was theirs to tender. I urged the taverner to hasten with my horse, and stood waiting in the squalid common-room, my mind divided ’twixt impatience to resume the road to Pesaro and fresh speculations upon the means I was to adopt to enter it and yet save my neck—for this was now become an obsessing problem. As I stood waiting, there broke upon my ears the sound of an approaching cavalcade: the noise of voices and the soft fall of hoofs upon the thick snow carpet. The company halted at the door, and a loud, gruff voice was raised to cry: “Locandiere! Afoot, sluggard!”