might just be suspected of manhood enough to squire a proud dame-citizen
to the lecture at Saint Antonlin's, and quarrel in her cause with any
flat-capped threadmaker that would take the wall of her. He must ruffle
it in another sort that would walk to court in a nobleman's train."

"Oh, content you, sir," replied Foster, "there is a change since you
knew the English world; and there are those who can hold their way
through the boldest courses, and the most secret, and yet never a
swaggering word, or an oath, or a profane word in their conversation."

"That is to say," replied Lambourne, "they are in a trading copartnery,
to do the devil's business without mentioning his name in the firm?
Well, I will do my best to counterfeit, rather than lose ground in this
new world, since thou sayest it is grown so precise. But, Anthony, what
is the name of this nobleman, in whose service I am to turn hypocrite?"

"Aha! Master Michael, are you there with your bears?" said Foster, with
a grim smile; "and is this the knowledge you pretend of my concernments?
How know you now there is such a person IN RERUM NATURA, and that I have
not been putting a jape upon you all this time?"

"Thou put a jape on me, thou sodden-brained gull?" answered Lambourne,
nothing daunted. "Why, dark and muddy as thou think'st thyself, I
would engage in a day's space to sec as clear through thee and thy
concernments, as thou callest them, as through the filthy horn of an old
stable lantern."

At this moment their conversation was interrupted by a scream from the
next apartment.