"I do not know."
The expert skilfully inserted the brown dust into his nostrils with his right thumb, scarcely wasting a grain in the operation.
"You do not seem to know much," he observed thoughtfully, and took up his lantern again.
"I know what I have been taught," replied the mason without resentment.
The expert glanced at him quickly, but said nothing more. His inspection was finished, and he led the way out of the intricate cellars as if he knew them by heart, though he had only passed through them once, and he left the palace on foot when he had brushed some of the dust from his shabby clothes.
The porter looked enquiringly at the two men, as they filled little clay pipes that had cane stems, standing under the deep entrance.
"Not even the price of half a litre of wine," said the mason in answer to the mute question.
"Church stuff," observed the carpenter discontentedly.
The porter nodded gravely, and the men nodded to him as they went out into the street. They had nothing more to do that day, and they turned into the dark little wine shop, where the withered bush stuck out of the blackened grating. They sat down opposite each other, with the end of the grimy board of the table between them, and the carpenter made a sign. The host brought a litre measure of thin red wine and set it down between them with two tumblers. He was ghastly pale, flabby and sullen, with a quarter of an inch of stubbly black beard on his unhealthy face.
The carpenter poured a few drops of wine into one of the tumblers, shook it about, turned it into the other, shook it again, and finally poured it on the unctuous stone floor beside him. Then he filled both glasses to the brim, and both men drank in silence.