IN THE FIRCONE TAVERN 

In the dark main room of the Fircone Tavern the warm June air seemed
to have lost all its delicacy, like a degraded angel.  It was sodden
through and through, as with the lees of wine; it was stained and
shamed with the smells of hams and cheeses; it was thick and heavy
as if with the breaths of all the rogues and all the vagabonds that
had haunted the hostelry from its evil dawn.  Such guttering lights
and glimmering flames as lit the place--for there was a small fire
on the wide hearth in spite of the fine weather--peopled the gloom
with fantastic quivering shadows as of lean fingers that unfolded
themselves to filch, or clenched themselves to stab in the back.  But
its patrons seemed to like the place well enough in spite of its
miasma, and Master Robin Turgis, the fat landlord, drowsy with his
own wine and dripping from the heat, surveyed them complacently, and
wallowed as it were in the rattle and clink of mug and can, the
full-throated laughter and the shrill chatter, crisply emphasized by
oaths, which assured him of the Fircone's popularity with its
intimates.  Master Robin's intelligence was limited; his wit was
simple; the processes of his mind moved easily along the lines of