The Bailiff's face grew red, or rather, redder. "Come, young man, did you hear me speak?" he said pompously. "Where from last?" "From the road, sir," I replied, turning to him as if I had not heard him before. "And a very wet road it was." A man who sat next me chuckled, being apparently a stranger like myself. But the Bailiff puffed himself into a still more striking likeness to King Henry, and including him in his scowl shouted at me, "Sirrah! don't bandy words with me! Which way did you come along the road, I asked." It was on the tip of my tongue to answer saucily, "The right way!" But I reflected that I might be stopped; and to be stopped might mean to be hanged at worst, and something very unpleasant at best. So I controlled myself, and answered--though the man's arrogance was provoking enough--"I have come from Stratford, and I am going to London. Now you know as much as I do." "Do I?" he said, with a sneer and a wink at the landlord. "Yes, I think so," I answered patiently. "Well, I don't!" he retorted, in vulgar triumph. "I don't. It is my opinion that you have come from London." I went on with my supper. "Do you hear?" he asked pompously, sticking his arms akimbo and looking round for sympathy. "You will have to give an account of yourself, young man. We will have no penniless rogues and sturdy vagabonds wandering about St. Albans." "Penniless rogues do not go a-horseback," I answered. But it was wonderful how my spirits sank again under that word "penniless." It hit me hard. "Wait a bit," he said, raising his finger to command attention for his next question. "What is your religion, young man?" "Oh!" I replied, putting down my knife and looking open scorn at him, "you are an inquisitor, are you?" At which words of mine there was a kind of stir. "You would burn me as I hear they burned Master Sandars at Coventry last week, would you? They were talking about it down the road."