moustachios."

I laughed with him at the improbability of such things befalling. I
carried in my bosom too large a heart, and one that was the property of
every wench I met--for just so long as I chanced to be in her company.

It was no more than in harmony with this habit of mine, that when, next
morning in the common-room of the Connétable, I espied Jeanneton, the
landlord's daughter, and remarked that she was winsome and shapely, with a
complexion that would not have dishonoured a rose-petal, I permitted myself
to pinch her dainty cheek. She slapped mine in return, and in this
pleasant manner we became acquainted.

"Sweet Jeanneton," quoth I with a laugh, "that was mightily ill-done! I
did but pinch your cheek as one may pinch a sweet-smelling bud, so that the
perfume of it may cling to one's fingers."

"And I, sir," was the pert rejoinder, "did but slap yours as one may slap a
misbehaving urchin's; so that he may learn better manners."

Nevertheless she was pleased with my courtly speech, and perchance also
with my moustachios, for a smile took the place of the frown wherewith she
had at first confronted me. Now, if I had uttered glib pleasantries in
answer to her frowns, how many more did not her smiles wring from me! I
discoursed to her in the very courtliest fashion of cows and pullets and
such other matters as interesting to her as they were mysterious to me. I
questioned her in a breath touching her father's pigs and the swain she
loved best in that little township, to all of which she answered me with a
charming wit, which would greatly divert you did I but recall her words
sufficiently to set them down. In five minutes we had become the best