The host was a civil, stupid fellow, who eyed me like one from whom he suspected mischief, and seemed impatient till I had drained my pot and was gone. But I had no thought of going, and bade him, since business kept me that night in Canterbury, get me a bed. He declared he had none to spare, and that I might get better quarters in the town. But I replied I wanted no better quarters than the "Oriflame," and if it came to a lack of beds, he and I could do with one betwixt us. "Or," said I, "if, as I am told, my old friend and comrade Jack Gedge, once a soldier, lodgeth here, he and I will not quarrel over our share of a crib." At that he looked uneasy and said Jack Gedge was not there. He would have me believe at first he knew no man of the name; but I wormed it out of him that a month back a fellow had come and taken service with him as drawer and labourer, calling himself plain Gedge. But only a week ago, as this same fellow was bringing in the pigs, a handful of men had set upon him, with a magistrate's warrant, and arrested him as a deserted soldier, skulking to avoid her Majesty's service, and had carried him away to Rochester gaol. I questioned him as to who his captors were, but he said he knew them not, but supposed them to be men in the company of the Captain whose colours the fellow had abandoned. Knowing what I did, I guessed this was so, and that it had been part of a plan against the maiden thus to get one of her protectors out of the way. "And have you had much company here of late," I asked, "that your house is so full?" He looked queerly at me, for he knew as well as I there was no guest but myself beneath the roof. "By your leave," said he, "I am ill prepared to make any guest welcome, and pray you do me the favour to seek entertainment elsewhere." "Nay," said I, "I like the place. And if you suspect me, let me tell you I am a plain London printer's 'prentice, come to seek my Grace's licence for a book, which I hope to receive to-morrow." "I hope you say true," said he, "for I have had trouble enough with guests here lately, not as honest as you. Why, sir," said he, filling my mug, "only yesterday there came here such a surly-faced varlet as you never saw, who whined and sang psalms as he drank my ale; and then when the time came to pay, told me to score it to one Captain Merriman, in whose sendee he was, and who would come and pay it presently. I ask you, sir, how would you like that at your inn?" "Thank Heaven I have no inn; but tell me, landlord, this varlet, was he a long pale fellow, with straight hair, and eyes half shut; and was this the tune he whined?" And I hummed Peter's favourite tune. "The very man," said my landlord, rising to his feet with a start. "You have hit him to a point. And be you then this Captain Merriman that is to pay my score?"