read both the consciousness of guilt and the apprehension of immediate death; it was plain that they expected nothing less.  I was very willing to play with their fears, and for some time looked at them in silence, while all wondered with lively curiosity what would ensue.  I then addressed them gravely, telling the innkeeper that I knew well he had loosened each year a shoe of my horse, in order that his brother might profit by the job of replacing it; and went on to reprove the smith for the ingratitude which had led him to return my bounty by the conception of so knavish a trick.

Upon this they confessed their guilt, and flinging themselves upon their knees with many tears and prayers begged for mercy.  This, after a decent interval, I permitted myself to grant.  “Your lives, which are forfeited, shall be spared,” I pronounced.  “But punished you must be.  I therefore ordain that Simon, the smith, at once fit, nail, and properly secure a pair of iron shoes to Andrew’s heels, and that then Andrew, who by that time will have picked up something of the smith’s art, do the same to Simon.  So will you both learn to avoid such shoeing tricks for the future.”

It may well be imagined that a judgment so whimsical, and so justly adapted to the offense, charmed all save the culprits; and in a hundred ways the pleasure of those present was evinced, to such a degree, indeed, that Maignan had some difficulty in restoring silence and gravity to the assemblage.  This done, however, Master Andrew was taken in hand and his wooden shoes removed.  The tools of his trade were placed before the smith, who cast glances so piteous, first at his brother’s feet and then at the shoes on the anvil, as again gave rise to a prodigious amount of merriment, my pages in particular well-nigh forgetting my presence, and rolling about in a manner unpardonable at another time.  However, I rebuked them sharply, and was about to order the sentence to be carried into effect, when the remembrance of the many pleasant simplicities which the smith had uttered to me, acting upon a natural disposition to mercy, which the most calumnious of my enemies have never questioned, induced me to give the prisoners a chance of escape.  “Listen,” I said, “Simon and Andrew.  Your sentence has been pronounced, and will certainly be executed unless you can avail yourself of the condition I now offer.  You shall have three minutes; if in that time either of you can make a good joke, he shall go free.  If not, let a man attend to the bellows, La Trape!”

This added a fresh satisfaction to my neighbors, who were well assured now that I had not promised them a novel entertainment without good grounds; for the grimaces of the two knaves thus bidden to jest if they would save their skins, were so diverting they would have made a nun laugh.  They looked at me with their eyes as wide as plates, and for the whole of the time of grace never a word could they utter save howls for mercy.  “Simon,” I said gravely, when the time was up, “have you a joke?  No.  Andrew, my friend, have you a joke?  No.  Then—­”