Fortunato drank the Medoc and once again became boisterous and once more "his bells jingled." Fortunato toasted Montresor's buried ancestors, and Montresor returned the toast to Fortunato's "long life." When Fortunato noted how extensive the vaults were, Montresor told him that he heard that the Montresors "were a great and numerous family." Then, in his drunkenness, Fortunato says that he has forgotten what Montresor's coat of arms looks like. This statement, at the time of the story's setting, would be yet one more of the many blatant insults for which Montresor hates Fortunato. He states that his family's coat of arms has on it "a huge human foot d'or [foot of gold], in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel" and that the family motto is "Nemo me impune lacessit" (No one attacks me with impunity). Thus, both the motto and the coat of arms imply that the entire Montresor family history is filled with acts of revenge.
As the two men proceeded further along the tunnels, the cold and the nitre fumes increased, and Fortunato asked for another drink. Montresor gave him a bottle of De Grave, which Fortunato emptied and then tossed the bottle into the air with a certain symbolic gesture. At this point, Fortunato was sure that Montresor didn't understand the gesture because it belonged to the secret order of the masons — an order that Fortunato was certain that Montresor couldn't belong to, thus flinging Montresor another insult and, unknowingly, bringing himself closer to his living death. Fortunato then showed him a sign of the masons — a trowel, which he brought with him. This is, of course, a double irony since the trowel is not only an instrument used by real masons (bricklayers, stone masons, etc.), but it is one of the emblems of the Masonic Order, and in this case it will become an instrument of Fortunato's death — shortly after he implies that Montresor is not good enough to be a member of the Masonic Order. In only a few minutes, it will he seen that Montresor is indeed a superb mason.
