Sir Richard Pendragon having at last, as he expressed it, “coaxed the rude jade into a humour of some civility,” made to mount his tall horse, which stood solemnly munching corn before the inn door. But as he did so there arose an altercation with the innkeeper, for, following his usual practice, the Englishman showed no disposition to pay his score. However, as we moved off, the Count of Nullepart threw a piece of money to the astonished and complaining host. Nevertheless we had scarcely gone the distance of a single street when Sir Richard Pendragon again dismounted. In one of the bazaars which abound in this city he purchased a handsome cloak edged with fur, which put the tattered garment he was wearing to the blush. His bonnet also received a new white feather for its adornment. “It was not seemly,” he said, “that one of his lineage should come before the good France like a guy in a field of young beans, lest France, who was a good fellow, should consider him to be one of the Spanish nobility.” Upon these loose words I felt my hand stray to the hilt of my sword. And although our situation was one of great instancy, and my incapacity to cope with the Englishman’s skill in this weapon was notorious, we must have crossed blades in the public street had not the peace been indebted to the notable behaviour of the worshipful Count of Nullepart. His apologies for this rude foreigner were so delicate that I swallowed my choler in what sort I might; and to such a point did the Count of Nullepart carry his courtesy that he even brought the Englishman to say that his reference to the Spanish nobility “was only his humour, which, as was the case with his nation, was apt to lead him into all kinds of fantasy; although foreign peoples, who lived in dark places, and rubbed but seldom against enlightened minds, could never addict themselves to this English pleasantry. Y’are solemn rogues, you continentals,” he concluded. “I don’t wonder you require so much holy water and so many masses for your souls.” As we came through the market-place there were hens and turkeys exposed for sale in the open bazaars. To the astonishment of those who sold these wares, Sir Richard Pendragon lifted a number of them on to his saddle on the point of his sword, saying “that, in his opinion, although doubtless it was his English whimsicality, their flavour, if roasted gently over a sea-coal fire, compared not unfavourably with the finest Spanish sand and the fattest Spanish flies.”