He started, and the thin wine he was setting before me splashed over on the table.
"What neighbours?"
"Why, they who close their shutters when other folks would keep them open, and open them when others keep them shut," I said airily. "Last night I saw three men in the window opposite mine."
He laughed.
"Aha, my lad, your head is not used to our Paris wines. That is how you came to see visions."
"Nonsense," I cried, nettled. "Your wine is too well watered for that, let me tell you, Maître Jacques."
"Then you dreamed it," he said huffily. "The proof is that no one has lived in that house these twenty years."
Now, I had plenty to trouble about without troubling my head over night-hawks, but I was vexed with him for putting me off. So, with a fine conceit of my own shrewdness, I said:
"If it was only a dream, how came you to spill the wine?"
He gave me a keen glance, and then, with a look round to see that no one was by, leaned across the table, up to me.