John Gore and Mr. Pepys shared the same room that night, and the Secretary’s bed-going was as lengthy as his tongue. He had a habit of undressing by degrees, and of sitting down and roasting his toes at the fire between each act. He would even draw off his small-clothes from one leg and sit with the other still breeched, while he chatted and fondled his chin. Even when he had undressed, the toilet for the night was nearly as thorough as the toilet for the day. Mr. Pepys aired the contents of his travelling valise before the fire, and donned in succession a pair of lamb’s-wool bed-boots, a thick undervest, a blue cloth sleeping-coat, and a great nightcap, which he drew down over his ears. Then he shut the lattice tight, pushed a table against the door, put his money under his pillow, warmed his feet for the last time at the fire, and then clambered into bed. “Lord Montague can stay at Jericho,” he said, as he wallowed down into a feathered mattress. “The weather should be steady, Jack—my corns are quiet. What do you say to Hurstmonceux for to-morrow. I wager that we can get inside.” “The girl spoke of Thorn.” “That was an allegory, John; ask her if her name is Rose. Now I dare you to keep me awake with your talking, sir; I know you sailors, all yarn to the rope’s-end. Good wench, she has warmed the bed well just where my feet go, God bless her! Did you applaud the color of those stays, John? Red and green are rare colors on a dark woman. Ah—ho!—if I tie not my clacker up, you will never let me sleep till midnight.” John Gore still remembered Mr. Pepys’s snoring when they ordered their horses out next morning for a jaunt over the Sussex hills. Mistress Green Stays brought Mr. Pepys a mug of sack into the court-yard as he sat in the saddle, for which favor he thanked her gallantly, and told her she had pretty dimples at the elbow. They took a track that ran out of the western end of the town past the old Watch Oak, and soon toward Ashburnham and Penhurst. Now, to put the matter frankly, these two gentlemen got wickedly lost that day, largely through a fit of friskiness on Mr. Pepys’s part in chasing a stray donkey down a side road. He had been lusting for a gallop, so he said, and the moke gave it him, to land him quizzically in a stout thorn-hedge. John Gore extricated the Secretary, condoled with him over the scratches, and prevailed upon him to return toward the road. But Mr. Pepys boasted a great belief in his own bump of locality, and, taking to a bridle-path, lost himself with complete success. And then he swore roundly at the Sussex roads, as though it was their duty to fly up in his face and not go crawling and sneaking like a lot of thieves behind a wood.