“Hold your peace, beadle,” said I, “or you shall swing on the beam over your head. Here, Peter, get up.”
Peter rose, purple in face, and not very steady in the knees.
“Now,” said I, “tell me, where got you that ale?”
“Indeed, Humphrey, I was invited to it. I never—”
“Where got you that beef and bread?”
“I—oh, dost thou think so ill of me as to suppose—”
“That when your master is in gaol, and your mistress and her little ones are homeless, you would come here and gorge your vile paunch with the food that belongs to them? yes, I suppose every word of it, Peter Stoupe.”
“But,” said he, “I have a right as a ’prentice—”
“’Prentice!” shouted I, “you a ’prentice! a mean, chicken-livered, gluttonous sneak like you, a ’prentice! ’fore heaven, you do the craft honour! Come, bustle away with you, and God save my master from such dirty thieves as you.”
Here Timothy Ryder was foolish enough to laugh; which enraged me past all enduring.