“You have spoken like an empress, most mighty Ursula,” said Jenkin Vincent; “and your will shall be obeyed.”
“You know Alsatia well?” continued his tutoress.
“Well enough, well enough,” replied he with a nod; “I have heard the dice rattle there in my day, before I must set up for gentleman, and go among the gallants at the Shavaleer Bojo's, as they call him,—the worse rookery of the two, though the feathers are the gayest.”
“And they will have a respect for thee yonder, I warrant?”
“Ay, ay,” replied Vin, “when I am got into my fustian doublet again, with my bit of a trunnion under my arm, I can walk Alsatia at midnight as I could do that there Fleet Street in midday—they will not one of them swagger with the prince of 'prentices, and the king of clubs—they know I could bring every tall boy in the ward down upon them.”
“And you know all the watermen, and so forth?”
“Can converse with every sculler in his own language, from Richmond to Gravesend, and know all the water-cocks, from John Taylor the Poet to little Grigg the Grinner, who never pulls but he shows all his teeth from ear to ear, as if he were grimacing through a horse-collar.”
“And you can take any dress or character upon you well, such as a waterman's, a butcher's, a foot-soldier's,” continued Ursula, “or the like?”
“Not such a mummer as I am within the walls, and thou knowest that well enough, dame,” replied the apprentice. “I can touch the players themselves, at the Ball and at the Fortune, for presenting any thing except a gentleman. Take but this d—d skin of frippery off me, which I think the devil stuck me into, and you shall put me into nothing else that I will not become as if I were born to it.”
“Well, we will talk of your transmutation by and by,” said the dame, “and find you clothes withal, and money besides; for it will take a good deal to carry the thing handsomely through.”