“My dear Sweet,--I think I am the most wretched man in all England, I and no other am he. I must fain tell you the truth, which, in my great love and care for thy sweet peace, I have hitherto kept back, and would have done, cost me what might, had it been longer possible. I lie here at the suit of one Bruno, a Longobard, for a pitiful sum I was constrained to borrow of him, and for which he exacts fifty in the hundred usury. And for a miserable debt like this, am I to be made wretched, and kept from my dear wife and child? * Did I not say I was the most unhappy wretch in England? Oh! pity me, my dear wife; I am here in a foul room, with greasy rogues and villains. If I send out for civet to sweeten the air, the knaves rob me in my exchange, and bring me in foul stuff. Truly I am in the hands of thieves and robbers; for they charge me sixpence the quart for thin drugged wine, when the best Gascon wine is but fourpence the gallon in the Vintry. Thou seest how impossible it is for me to send thee the money thou dost require. Already have I shortened my gold chain by four links, for meat and drink. I may not part with more, for there be here confined certain gentlemen of the court, before whom I am fain to keep up my estate. But for all their gentility, I suspect some of their number to be no better than false knaves and coggers. For last night, they decoyed me, through my distraction and unbearable misery on thy account, into play, and stripped me of my last gold Florence, as I do think by foul means. Oh, my dear wife! how thankful thou shouldst be to be spared the sharing in my troubles! Do not grieve nor fret at the thought that they were brought on by my great love for thee, as indeed they were; for was it not my zeal to have thee make a figure at court that first got me in such debt? But have I not cheerfully borne all for thee,--as thy love hath indeed well merited? Did I consider my rank and ancestry when thou didst witch me with thy rosy cheeks and blue eyes, though but the daughter of a low-born trader? Nay! I must dwell on it, for methinks thou dost sometimes rate my love too low. Did I not bear with thine ignoble kinsmen, till they took to reviling and slighting me? I believe thou art a changeling, thou pretty rogue! and none of their blood. I meant not to tell thee of this, but I am on the matter, and it must needs out. Yesterday, on my arrest, being at the end of my wits what to do, I sent a hoy to thine uncle Simpkin the Tanner, saying, that in time of suffering, ill blood should cease, and I would be willing to forget all past differences so that he would come and release me with his surety. I shame to write his answer; but that thou shouldst know, for once and all, from what a churlish stock thy good fortune hath rescued thee, it must needs be told. He sent back word, that he had thought Sir Gilbert Falstaff had forgotten all past differences long ago, including