“As you wish, friend countryman. But will you trade in pearl and sapphire, or diamond pins and brooches, perhaps—or is it only for broken victuals of my last night’s supper?”
“Keep thy victuals for thy lean and hungry lads! I will trade with you in pearl and sapphire.” And thereon, from under my moldy rags, I brought a lordly ring that danced and sparkled in the clear sunlight stealing through the mullioned windows of his booth, and threw quivering rainbow hues upon the white walls of the little den, dazzling the blinking, delighted old man in front of me. “How much for that?” I asked, throwing it down in front of him.
It was a better gem than he had seen for many a day, and, having turned it over loving and wistful, he whispered to me (for he thought I had surely stolen it) one-sixteenth of its value! Thereon I laughed at him, and threw down my cap, and took the ring, and gave him such a lecture on gems and jewels—all out of my old Phrygian merchant knowledge—so praised and belauded the shine and water of each single shining point in that golden circlet, that presently I had sold it to him for near its value!
Then I bought a leather wallet and put the money in, and traded again lower down the street with another ring. And then again at good prices—for competition was close among these goldsmiths, and none liked me to sell the beautiful things I showed them one by one to their rivals—I sold two more.
“Surely! surely! good youth,” questioned one merchant to me, “these trinkets were made for some master Abbot’s thumb, or some blessed saint.”
“And surely again, my friend,” I answered, “you have just seen them drawn from a layman’s finger.”
“Well, well,” he said, “I will give you your price,” and then, as he turned away to pack them, he muttered to himself, “A stout cudgel seems a good profession nowadays! If it were not through fear yon Flemish rascal over the road might take the gem, I at least would never deal with such an obvious footpad.”
By this time I was rich, and my wallet purse hung low and heavy at my girdle, so away I went to where some tailors lived, and accosted the best of them. Here the cross-legged sewers who sat on the sill among shreds of hundred-colored stuffs and the bent, white-fingered embroiderers stopped their work and gaped to hear the ragged, wayworn loafer, whose broad shadow darkened their doorway, ask for silks and satins, yepres and velvet. One youthful churl, under the master’s eyes, unbonneted, and in mock civility asked me whether I would have my surtout of crimson or silver—whether my jupons should be strung with seedling pearls, or just plain sewn with golden thread and lace. He said, that harmless scoffer, he knew a fine pattern a noble lord had lately worn, of minever and silver, which would very neatly suit me—but I, disdainful, not putting my hand to my loaded pouch as another might have done, only let the ragged homespun fall from across my face, and, taking the cap from my raven hair and grim, weather-beaten face, turned upon them.
The laughter died away in that little den as I did so, the embroiderer’s needle stuck halfway through its golden fabric, the workers stared upon me open-mouthed. The cutter’s shears shut with a snap upon the rustling webs, and then forgot to open, while ’prentice lads stood, all with yardwands in their hand, most strangely spellbound by my presence. The conquest was complete without a word, and no one moved, until presently down shuffled the master tailor from his dusky corner, and, waving back his foolish boys, bowed low with sudden reverence as he asked with many epithets of respect in how he might serve me.
“Thanks,” I said, “my friend. What I need is only this—that you should express upon me some of these tardy but courteous commendations. Translate me from these rags to the livery of gentility. Express in good stuffs upon me some of that ‘nobility’ your quick perception has now discovered—in brief, suit me at once as a not too fantastic knight of your time is clad; and have no doubt about my paying.” Whereon I quickened his willingness by a sight of my broad pieces.