This raised a laugh among the tavern idlers, for I had been bragging a bit of my prospects. I retorted: "When I am, Maître Jacques, look out for a rise in your taxes." The laugh was turned on mine host, and I retired with the honours of that encounter. And though the stairs were the steepest I ever climbed, I had the breath and the spirit to whistle all the way up. What mattered it that already I ached in every bone, that the stair was long and my bed but a heap of straw in the garret of a mean inn in a poor.
