He would watch this fellow, and at the first sign of an evil--Carmichael's muscular brown hands opened and shut ominously.

The vintner did not observe this peculiar expression of the hands; and Carmichael's face was bland.
A tankard, rapping a table near-by, called Gretchen to her duties.

There was something reluctant in her step, in the good-by glance, in the sudden fall of the smiling lips.
"She will make some man a good wife," said Carmichael.
The vintner scowled at his tankard.
"He is not sure of her," thought Carmichael.

Aloud he said: "What a funny world it is!" "How ?" "Gretchen is beautiful enough to be a queen, and yet she is merely a Hebe in a tavern." "Hebe ?" suspiciously.

The peasant is always suspicious of anything he doesn't understand.
"Hebe was a cup-bearer to the mythological gods in olden times," Carmichael explained.