down I believe the butcher tried to bite his
opponent's ear. However they were rather high-class for their
condition. I found out later that at this time in the darker parts of
London the knife was a favourite weapon of the English and was as
rampant as ever it is in the black alleys of an Italian city. It was
no good news for me, for the Irish had long been devoted to the
cudgel.

When I wish for information I always prefer making the request to a
gentleman. To have speech of a boor is well enough if he would not
first study you over to find, if he can, why you want the information,
and, after a prolonged pause, tell you wrong entirely. I perceived a
young gentleman standing in under a porch and ogling a window on the
opposite side of the way. "Sir," said I, halting my horse close to
him, "would you be so kind as to point to a stranger the way to a good
inn?" He looked me full in the face, spat meaningly in the gutter,
and, turning on his heel, walked away. And I will give oath he was not
more than sixteen years old.

I sat stiff in the saddle; I felt my face going hot and cold. This
new-feathered bird with a toy sword! But to save me, as it happened,
from a preposterous quarrel with this infant, another man came along
the sidewalk. He was an older man, with a grave mouth and a clean-cut
jowl. I resolved to hail him. "And now my man," said I under my
breath, "if you are as bad as the other, by the mass, I'll have a
turnover here with you, London or no London."

Then I addressed him. "Sir--" I began. But here a cart roared on my
other side, and I sat with my mouth open, looking at him. He smiled a
little, but waited courteously for the hideous din to cease. "Sir," I
was enabled to say at last, "would you be so kind as to point to a
stranger the way to a good inn?" He scanned me quietly, in order, no
doubt, to gain an idea what kind of inn would suit my condition.
"Sir," he answered, coming into the gutter and pointing, "'tis this
way to Bishopsgate Street, and there you will see the sign of the 'Pig
and Turnip,' where there is most pleasurable accommodation for man and
beast, and an agreeable host." He was a shop-keeper of the city of
London, of the calm, steady breed that has made successive kings
either love them or fearingly hate them,--the bone and the sinew of
the great town.

I thanked him heartily, and we went on to the "Pig and Turnip." As we
clattered into the inn yard it was full of people mounting and
d