“Thou’rt well met, my little Lord Mayor. By my soul, I might have walked a league and never met thee.”
“You might have walked farther than that,” said I. “What villainy are you and your master now upon? for I take it you still serve the Captain?”
He laughed. “As for my master, let him be. He’s snug enough. I left him— Look you here, comrade,” said he, taking my arm and looking hard at me, “where saw I thee last?”
“Once when you lay as drunk as a dog in Finsbury Fields. And a good turn you did me, comrade, and more than me, by what you blabbed then.”
He gaped rather foolishly at this, and asked did I want my ears slit for a noisy malapert?
Then I told him just what passed, and how I had been able thereby to save the maiden from the Captain’s clutches. When he heard that he laughed, and swore and thwacked me on the back till I nearly dropped.
“By my life, you gallows dog you, if my master only knew what he owed you! Why, my pretty lad, I never saw a man so put about as he was when he came back from Canterbury that time without his prey.”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“Where else, do you suppose, but smacking his lips near the dove’s nest? He hath comforted himself for all he hath suffered, ere now, I warrant thee!”
“What!” I shouted. “Has he followed the maiden to Ireland?”