"Let me come in out of the hearing of this moon-faced idiot," said he, pointing contumeliously to Peter of the Pigs, "and I will tell you. I am not bidden to proclaim my business in the market sties and city cattlepens!"
"You do well, Parchment Knave," cried Peter; "for it is such black business that if you proclaimed a syllable of it there you would be torn to pieces of honest folk. Thank God there are still some such in the world!"
"Aye, many," quoth the servitor, "and we all know they are to be found in the dwellings of priestlings!"
I walked with the man to the gate, for I did not care to take him to where Dessauer was sitting. I feared that it might be some ill news from the Lubber Fiend, who, though I had seen him clear of the gate, might very well have returned and told my message to Master Gerard.
"Well," said I, brusquely, for I had no love for the Sir Rusty
Respectable, "out with it—who sends you?"
"It is not my master," answered the man, "but one other."
"What other?" said I.
"The one," he said, cunningly, "with whom on a former occasion you rode out at the White Gate."
Then I saw that he knew me.
"The Princess—" I began.