The latter now removed the arm. “So ho! Master Scholar, your Condescension returns from the moon—after we’ve halloaed ourselves hoarse! What devil of a book carried you aloft like that?” Aderhold decided to be as placating as possible. “It is, sir, the ‘Chirurgia Magna’ of Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus.” The red and blue man was determined to bully. “The Cap and Bells has under consideration the state of the Realm. The Cap and Bells has addressed itself to you three times, requesting your opinion upon grave matters. First you deign no answer at all, and finally you insult us with trivialities! ’S death! are you an Englishman, sir?” “As English as you, sir,” answered Aderhold; “though, in truth, seeing that I have lived abroad some years and am but lately returned, my English manners may have somewhat rusted and become clownish. I crave pardon of the worshipful company, and I shall not again read in its presence.” A roisterer addressed him from halfway down the table. “We’ve got a ruling—we that frequent the Cap and Bells. You’re a stranger—and a strange-looking stranger, too, by your leave—and you must wipe out the offense of your outlandishness! A bowl of sack for the company—you’ll pay for a bowl of sack for the company?” The colour flooded Aderhold’s thin cheek. He had not enough in his purse or anything like enough. To-morrow he expected—or hoped rather than expected—to receive payment from the alderman whose wife, having fallen ill before the very door of the house where he lodged, he had attended and brought out from the presence of death. But to-morrow was to-morrow, and to-night was to-night. He told the truth. “I am a poor physician, my masters, who hath of late been set about with misfortune—” The red and blue bully smote the table with his fist. “What a murrain is a man doing in the Cap and Bells who cannot pay for sack? Poor physician, quotha! I’ve known a many physicians, but none so poor as that—” One of the lawyers, a middle-aged, wiry man in black, raised his head. “He says true. Come, brother, out with thy gold and silver!” “When I shall have paid,” said Aderhold, “for the malmsey I have drunk, I shall not have fourpence in my purse.” “Pay for the sack,” said the lawyer, “and leave the malmsey go.” “Nay,” said Aderhold, “I owe for the malmsey.” The red and blue man burst forth again. “Oons! Would you have it that you do not owe the sack? Call for the drink and a great bowl of it, aye! If the host is out at the end, he can take his pay with a cudgel or summon the watch! Physician, quotha? Now, as my name’s Anthony Mull, he looks more to me like a black seminary priest!”