The speaker, a short, large-nosed man of middle age, had taken his stand upon an upturned barrel, for otherwise he would have been hidden amongst the people who thronged that part of the city of London, and would have found it impossible to attract their attention. But as it was, his head and shoulders reared themselves above the crowd, and he stood there the observed of all observers. He was dressed in a manner which suggested a calling partly attached to the sea and partly to do with the profession of arms, and if there had been any doubt in the minds of those who watched him, and listened to his harangue, his language, which was plentifully mingled with coarse nautical expressions of that day, and his weather-beaten and rugged features, would have assured them at once that he at least looked to ships and to the sea for his living. Peter Tamworth was indeed a sailor, every inch of him, but he had been schooled to other things, and had learned to use arms at times and in places where failure to protect himself would have led to dire consequences. He was a merry fellow, too, for he laughed and joked with the crowd, his eyes rolling in a peculiar manner all his own. His nose was large, huge in fact, and of a colour which seemed to betoken a fondness for carousal when opportunity occurred. A stubbly beard grew at his chin, while the upper lip was clean shaven, or had been on the previous Sunday, it being Peter's custom to indulge in a visit to the barber on that day if it happened that he was in port. A pair of massive shoulders, into which the neck seemed to be far sunk, completed an appearance, so far as it could be seen, which seemed to denote a stout fellow, fond of the good things to be found in this world, and not lacking in courage and determination when the time for blows arrived. A little later, when he leaped from the barrel and appeared in the open, it was seen that a ragged pair of hose covered massive legs, which were unusually bowed, and should have belonged to a horseman rather than to one who followed the calling of the sea. "Come, my masters," he called out again, holding the plaque above his head, and drumming upon it with the handle of his dagger till it rang clearly and sweetly like a silver gong. "Here is the Image of the Sun, and in gold! Yes, gentles and people, I commend this plaque to your careful attention. 'Tis solid gold--the gold of the Indies, the gold with which our Spanish cousins get rich and fatten."