He doffed his cap to me with some show of delicacy. He began to ask me if any great houses lay in the direction from which I had come, where he could earn a handful of groats. He told me that if there were any sick in the neighborhood, he could make them well again by the skill he had in cupping and leeching. I knew that barbers had the reputation as idle gossips, so I answered as evasively as I could. Then, when he saw that he was strumming on the wrong string, he grew bolder and more direct. He said flatly that I needed a little care myself. He invited me down from the horse. He assured me that, if I would sit on a stone on the side of the road for the space of half an hour, he would make a new man of me by the application of his art. But my experience with the scrivener had been enough. I knew that it was best to deal with this new nuisance as deftly as I might. I first said that he looked the master of his trade in every way. At which he puffed up like a pigeon and seemed highly flattered. Then I slowly let him know that my stock of money was very low, that I could hardly reckon on a resting place for the night (which of course was true) and that I was cautioned to be careful in the expenditure of every single coin. I might have gone further. But when my lack of money became known to him, he dropped his smile and shot a look at me that had poison in it. He picked up his satchel, grumbling and growling under his breath, and with a remark about beggars riding on horseback, quickly strode away. The next was a fellow with a cart, or rather a wagon on two wheels. He had shafts to it and instead of a horse had fastened himself to them by a strap similar to a yoke which reached over his shoulders. He was twice the size of an ordinary man. The rolls of fat hung under his chin and across his stomach in great layers. He came along puffing and snorting and mopping the sweat from his brow. At the same time he seemed as happy as a lark, for he was whistling a light tune as merrily as could be. He no sooner saw me than he lowered the cart on two props and disengaged himself from his harness. I was now so near that I saw that he had a kind of traveling show such as often stopped in our village in the early Spring. Only this fellow had no performing bear on a rope or a monkey or an acrobatic clown, but piled high on the cart, row after row, were small wooden cages. In each cage was a bird. Along the bottom were the parrots and then the further up they went the smaller the birds became until at the top sat perched the tiniest of wrens.