A young lout with a stumpy nose, which had evidently been broken some time or other, a bare breast, and a shock of ragged hair covering his face, answered the question.
"We are paying off a poisoner, young sir, if you must know."
"What poisoner do you mean?" inquired Maria, who had not the remotest idea what the fellow was driving at.
"What!" cried the stripling defiantly, "do you mean to say you don't know? Why, haven't the gentry got the Jews to put poison in the brandy! Why, everyone knows that."
Maria was so dumfounded that she had not a word to say in reply.
"Look! how he pretends to know nothing about it. But we are up to them. They may weave their plans as artfully as they like, we've got eyes in our heads all the same. All is betrayed. Come, thou Jew! confess that there is poison in that cask!"
And yet they all went on drinking out of the barrel as if they had made up their minds to discover what poison really tasted like.
The lout of a spokesman now filled his hat with brandy up to the brim, and held it out towards Maria.
"Come, young sir," said he, "if you don't believe that there's poison in it, just taste for yourself and see."
Maria, full of loathing, pushed aside the dirty hat-full of nauseous fluid.