“My gay gentleman,” he cried cheerfully, “will you pay the price of a fool?”
“Who is the fool?” asked Armstrong with a smile. “You or me?”
“There are many of us, and someone is always paying the price. That is how I get a little money now and then. England is paying the price of a fool, and has been for some years past; paying heavily too, for all fools are not as cheap as I am.”
“I asked you who the fool was?”
“Ah, that is a question you may have to answer yourself,” cried the object, with a cunning leer in his shining eyes. “Beware how you answer it, for if you give the wrong answer, the price you pay is your head. ‘Who is the fool?’ says you. That is the point, but whoever he is, we are paying for him with fire and sword and good human lives. Wherever there’s strife, look for the fool that caused it, but be cautious in naming him. Which road are you going to take, my gay gentleman?”
“I was just switherin’.”
“Ah, you’re from Scotland. They tell me they grow a fine crop of fools there. The road on the right leads to Carlisle, and the fool’s name in that direction is the King. The safest way is the one you came, and the fool’s name there is like to be Cromwell, so they tell me. Am I to get the fool’s price for advice?”
“You haven ’t given me any so far.”
“The advice all depends on what you pay for it. Let me see the coin, then I’ll show you my wares. We differ in this, that I’ll take whatever you give me, but you can take my advice or not, as you please.”
The horseman threw him a coin, which the object clutched in mid-air with great expertness and examined eagerly.