I laughed. The watch were all but in the alley's mouth. 'Twas idle to think of running now. Indeed, to have done so would have been to banish whatever slight chance I might have had.
"Oh, I am no highwayman," I said.
"Well, whatever you may be, you aided Robert Juggins in his peril, and 'twill be a sore pity if a Worshipful Alderman of the City may not see you through the scrutiny of a band of lazy bench-loafers."
"That is good hearing," I answered.
"Will they have your description?"
"I think not, but if they ask me to account for myself I shall be at fault. I am but lately landed from France, and I have no passport."
He pursed his lips once more in the quaint form of a low whistle.
"I begin to see. Well, my master, we will talk of your plight anon. For the present I have somewhat to say to our gallant rescuers which will put their thoughts upon other matters than young men fresh landed from France without passports to identify themselves by."
He swept a shrewd glance over me from my hat to my heels.
"There is a foreign cut to your wig that I do not like," he commented. "However, we will brazen it out. Here they come."