"
"I knew him all the time," Guy Tabarie was beginning when Ren? de
Montigny silenced him with a ringing clip on the nearest ear which
nearly unsaddled the fat rogue. "You lie, Mountain, you lie," he
whispered. "Do you think that if he cheated me your pig's eyes could
read the riddle? No, no, he fooled us fairly and he fooled us well,
but he treated us kindly and we can afford to cry quits."
"A strange thing," mused Colin, "that a trifle of hair less on a
man's chin and a trifle of dirt less on a man's cheek, with some
matter of clean linen and a smooth jerkin, can make such a
difference."
"Not at all," said Ren? de Montigny," we are all the same at the
core, every man-jack and woman-jill of us, hungering, thirsting,
lusting, just after the same fashion. 'Tis only the coat that
counts."
"'Tis you who lie now," grunted Tabarie. "There's no gold tissue in
the world that would make you as cunning as Fran?ois. You would
never have done as he did if the king had made you the pick of the
litter."
Rend whistled through his teeth. "May be so, may be not," he said.
"No man can tell what he may do till he is given his chance to test
his mettle.
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