"This Maitre Pierre tells me he is a merchant." "And if he told you so," said the innkeeper, "surely he is a merchant." "What commodities does he deal in ?" "Oh, many a fair matter of traffic," said the host; "and especially he has set up silk manufactories here which match those rich bales that the Venetians bring from India and Cathay.

You might see the rows of mulberry trees as you came hither, all planted by Maitre Pierre's command, to feed the silk worms." "And that young person who brought in the confections, who is she, my good friend ?" said the guest.
"My lodger, sir, with her guardian, some sort of aunt or kinswoman, as I think," replied the innkeeper.
"And do you usually employ your guests in waiting on each other ?" said Durward; "for I observed that Maitre Pierre would take nothing from your hand, or that of your attendant." "Rich men may have their fancies, for they can pay for them," said the landlord; "this is not the first time Maitre Pierre has found the true way to make gentlefolks serve at his beck." The young Scotsman felt somewhat offended at the insinuation; but, disguising his resentment, he asked whether he could be accommodated with an apartment at this place for a day, and perhaps longer.
"Certainly," the innkeeper replied; "for whatever time he was pleased to command it." "Could he be permitted," he asked, "to pay his respects to the ladies, whose fellow lodger he was about to become ?" The innkeeper was uncertain.

"They went not abroad," he said, "and received no one at home." "With the exception, I presume, of Maitre Pierre ?" said Durward.
"I am not at liberty to name any exceptions," answered the man, firmly but respectfully.
Quentin, who carried the notions of his own importance pretty high, considering how destitute he was of means to support them, being somewhat mortified by the innkeeper's reply, did not hesitate to avail himself of a practice common enough in that age.

"Carry to the ladies," he said, "a flask of vernat, with my humble duty; and say that Quentin Durward, of the house of Glen Houlakin, a Scottish cavalier of honour, and now their fellow lodger, desires the permission to dedicate his homage to them in a personal interview." The messenger departed, and returned, almost instantly, with the thanks of the ladies, who declined the proffered refreshment, and, with their acknowledgments to the Scottish cavalier, regretted that, residing there in privacy, they could not receive his visit.
Quentin bit his lip, took a cup of the rejected vernat, which the host had placed on the table.

"By the mass, but this is a strange country," said he to himself, "where merchants and mechanics exercise the manners and munificence of nobles, and little travelling damsels, who hold their court in a cabaret [a public house], keep their state like disguised princesses! I will see that black browed maiden again, or it will go hard, however;" and having formed this prudent resolution, he demanded to be conducted to the apartment which he was to call his own.
The landlord presently ushered him up a turret staircase, and from thence along a gallery, with many doors opening from it, like those of cells in a convent; a resemblance which our young hero, who recollected, with much ennui, an early specimen of a monastic life, was far from admiring.