My friend left my side and strode forward toward the captain of the watch, who gave back a pace or two until he felt the stomachs of his followers at his back.
"How now," said he who had called himself Robert Juggins, "hold up that lantern, you, sirrah, with the shaking arm. Look into my face, lazy dogs that you are. Dost know me?"
"'Tis Master Juggins," quoth the quavering voice. "Praise be for that."
"You know me, now!" pressed Master Juggins, poking his finger into the fat figure of the captain.
"Sure, you are Master Juggins," assented that official with sullen reluctance.
"And is an alderman of the city and a cupmate of the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs and the Warden of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Traders to the Western Plantations, on his way home from a meeting of his gild, within the city precincts—aye, in Mincing Lane, under the shadow of Paul's—I say am I to be held up by cut-purses, stabbed in the arm, forced to defend my very life—and then denounced and threatened with arrest by the watchmen paid by the city to protect its citizens?"
Master Juggins stopped perforce for breath.
"How say you, knaves!" he resumed. "Of what use have you been! Did you come at my call! Aye, like the sluggards you are. Have you done aught to run down the thieves and assassins who work under your noses!
"You stand here trying to prove that 'tis I, and not they, who have sought to rob myself. Go to! Ye are worthless, and I shall see that the Sheriffs and the Magistrates at Bow Street know of it."
"But, good Master Juggins," begged the captain, now thoroughly aroused to his plight, "sure you——"