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Villon was sensibly nettled under all this sermonizing. “You think I have no sense of honor!” he cried. “I’m poor enough, God knows! It’s hard to see rich people with their gloves, and you blowing your hands. An empty belly is a bitter thing, although you speak so lightly of it. If you had had as many as I, perhaps you would change your tune. Anyway, I’m a thief–make the most of that–but I’m not a devil from hell, God strike me dead. I would have you to know I’ve an honor of my own, as good as yours, though I don’t prate about it all day long, as if it were a God’s miracle to have any. It seems quite natural to me; I keep it in its box till it’s wanted. Why now, look you here, how long have I been in this room with you? Did you not tell me you were alone in the house? Look at your gold plate! You’re strong, if you like, but you’re old and unarmed, and I have my knife. What did I want but a jerk of the elbow, and here would have been you with the cold steel in your bowels, and there would have been me, linking in the streets, with an armful of gold cups! Did you suppose I hadn’t wit enough to see that? And I scorned the action. There are your damned goblets, as safe as in a church; there are you, with your heart ticking as good as new; and here am I, ready to go out again as poor as I came in, with my one white that you threw in my teeth! And you think I have no sense of honor–God strike me dead!”

The old man stretched out his right arm. “I will tell you what you are,” he said. “You are a rogue, my man, an impudent and a black-hearted rogue and vagabond. I have passed an hour with you. Oh! believe me, I feel myself disgraced! And you have eaten and drank at my table. But now I am sick at your presence; the day has come, and the night-bird should be off to his roost. Will you go before, or after?”

“Which you please,” returned the poet, rising. “I believe you to be strictly honorable.” He thoughtfully emptied his cup. “I wish I could add you were intelligent,” he went on, knocking on his head with his knuckles. “Age, age! the brains stiff and rheumatic.”

The old man preceded him from a point of self-respect; Villon followed, whistling, with his thumbs in his girdle.

“God pity you,” said the lord of Brisetout at the door.

“Good-bye, papa,” returned Villon, with a yawn. “Many thanks for the cold mutton.”

The door closed behind him. The dawn was breaking over the white roofs. A chill, uncomfortable morning ushered in the day. Villon stood and heartily stretched himself in the middle of the road.

“A very dull old gentleman,” he thought. “I wonder what his goblets may be worth.”