Chapter 4 — <br/>CHAPTER IV.<br/>MASTER JACQUES COPPENOLE.

While the pensioner of Ghent and his eminence were exchanging very low bows and
a few words in voices still lower, a man of lofty stature, with a large face
and broad shoulders, presented himself, in order to enter abreast with
Guillaume Rym; one would have pronounced him a bull-dog by the side of a fox.
His felt doublet and leather jerkin made a spot on the velvet and silk which
surrounded him. Presuming that he was some groom who had stolen in, the usher
stopped him.

“Hold, my friend, you cannot pass!”

The man in the leather jerkin shouldered him aside.

“What does this knave want with me?” said he, in stentorian tones, which
rendered the entire hall attentive to this strange colloquy. “Don’t you see
that I am one of them?”

“Your name?” demanded the usher.

“Jacques Coppenole.”

“Your titles?”

“Hosier at the sign of the ‘Three Little Chains,’ of Ghent.”