``The necessity don't know the low.''
``To build castles in Espaguish.''
``So many go the jar to spring, than at last rest there.''
(A little further on we find another version of this well-known proverb: ``So much go the jar to spring that at last it break there.'')
``The stone as roll not heap up not foam.''
``He is beggar as a church rat.''
``To come back at their muttons.'' <p 207>
``Tell me whom thou frequent, I will tell you which you are.''
The apparently incomprehensible sentence ``He sin in trouble water'' is explained by the fact that the translator confused the two French words p<e'>cher, to sin, and p<e^>cher, to fish.
The classification adopted by the authors cannot be considered as very scientific. The only colours catalogued are white, cray, gridelin, musk and red; the only ``music's instruments''—a flagelet, a dreum, and a hurdy-gurdy. ``Common stones'' appear to be loadstones, brick, white lead, and gumstone. But probably the list of ``Chastisements'' is one of the funniest things in this Guide to Conversation. The list contains a fine, honourable fine, to break upon, to tear off the flesh, to draw to four horses.