"Oh, rest you easy, sir," he laughed, "for the difference is less than one might suppose. There be pickings and leavings there as in an hostelry, a nimble wit needed in both places indifferently, and for the rest, work to be scanted and lies to be told. Hey! and lives to be lived, master, and purses filled, and nought had, here nor there, but must be paid for or else stolen." Such light-hearted roguery I owed it to my conscience to condemn, but for the life of me I could not, so that I fell into a great laughter that no shame might control. I hope it was weakness of my body, and not of virtue, pushed me to this length, but however come by, I could not help it, and think moreover it did me good. "Come, that is the note I like," said my tapster, whose name I learnt was Jocelin; and, setting his lips close to my ear, he added, "London town is but a lump of fat dough, master, till you set the yeast of wit to work therein; but after, look you! there be fair risings, and a handsome great loaf to share." His eyes sparkled. "I have the wit, man, I am the yeast, and so..." He had not finished his period, or if he did I marked him not, for just at that season the gate of a great house over the way opening, a party of horsemen rode forth into the street with a clatter of hoofs. They wheeled off at a smart pace to the right-hand, laughing and calling out to each other as they went, and sending the children a-skelter this way and that before them. Yet, notwithstanding they were gone by so speedily, I had yet espied the device upon their harness and cloaks, which was the green dragon and Pembroke cognizance. I flung back my chair. "Is yon house Baynards Castle?" I cried. "None other," he replied, nodding while he grinned. "I have certain good friends there, too." "Is Mr. Malpas of the number?" I demanded. "Oh, he!" he answered with a shrug. "A bitter secret man! If 'a has plots he keeps them close. He flies alone, though 'tis whispered he flies boldly. But we be honest men," quoth he, and held his chin 'twixt finger and thumb. "We live and let live, and meet fortune with a smile. But I hate them that squint upon the world sidelong, as he doth." From which I drew inference that they twain had formerly thieved together, and that Malpas had retained the spoil. But I soon tossed these thoughts aside for another, which, as it came without premeditation, so did I put it into practice immediately. Having satisfied my charges at the inn, therefore, and without a word to Jocelin, I ran across the street and into the gate-house of the castle, before the porter had time to close the gate of it behind the horsemen. "Is Mr. Malpas within?" I accosted him eagerly. The porter regarded me awhile from beneath raised brows. "Have you any business with him, young master?" said he. "Grave business," I replied, "knowing, as I do, who it was gave him that hurt he lies sick withal."