But, for lack of money, I might not speed.
The taverner took me by the sleeve,
‘Sir,’ saith he, ‘now my wine assay’;
I answered ‘that cannot much me grieve,
A penny can do no more than it may.’
I drank a pint, and for it did pay;
Yet sore a-hungered from thence I yede (went),
And, wanting money, I could not speed.”
He ends by saying how he at last went to Billingsgate and there tried to persuade a bargeman to row him across the river for nothing. But the bargeman declined to take any less than twopence, saying that he was not yet come to the time of life when he wished to practise active benevolence by the bestowal of alms. At last the poet got safely into Kent, and made up his mind to have no more to do with lawyers. The whole concludes with a pious wish for the welfare of London and of all honest lawyers:—
“Save London, and send true lawyers their meed!