enough practice in playing at modesty in the Tower of the Red Axe.

Master Gerard shook his shoulders as though he would have made me believe
that he laughed.

"You were over many for thorn, I hear great silly fellows--children
playing with fire yet afraid to burn themselves. Why, since ten this
morning I have had them all here--stout burgomeister's sons, slim scions
of the Burghershaft, moist-eyed corporation children, each more anxious
than another to prove that he had nothing to do with any treason. He had
but called in at the White Swan for a draught of Frederika's famous stone
ale, and so--well, he found himself somehow in the rear, and, all
against his will, was dragged into the Lair of the White Wolf!"

He looked at me quietly, without speaking, for a while.

"And you, Master Hugo, did you go thither to distinguish yourself by
breaking up their child's folly, or, like the others, to taste the
stone ale?"

It was a question I had not expected. But it was best to be very plain
with Master Gerard.

"I went," I replied, "along with Michael Texel, because he asked me. I
knew not in the least what I was to see, but I was ready for anything."

"And you acquitted yourself on the whole extremely well," he nodded; "so
at least they are all very ready to say, hoping, I doubt not, for your
good offices with the Duke when it comes to their turn. You flouted them
right manfully and defied their mystery, they told me."