"
Every man thrust his own mug towards Master Fran?ois, beseeching him
to drink of it, but he waved them all aside imperially. "Nay, I will
have my own," he said. "Have we no landlord here? Master Robin, come
hither."
Robin Turgis, who had kept apart up to now, surveying the new-comer
with no excess of favour, moved slowly forward with his thumbs in
his girdle and a sour smile on his fat cheeks. Master Fran?ois
addressed him sternly, twitching as he did so the landlord's greasy
cap from his pate and sending it flying down the room. "Why do you
not salute gentry when they honour your pot-house? A mug of your
best Beaune, Master Beggar-maker, to drink damnation to the
Burgundians."
Robin Turgis made no motion to obey, but his small eyes seemed to
grow smaller as they stared. "What colour has money now-a-days,
Master Fran?ois?" he asked doggedly. In a moment the brown, dirty
hand of the poet was clapped to his dagger and there was something
of a wolfish snarl in his voice as he answered menacingly, "The
colour of blood sometimes." But the landlord, unabashed and
undismayed, stood his ground.
"None of your swaggering, Master Fran?ois," he said sturdily.
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