for we are going south awhile to a good town some fifty
miles hence. Nevertheless, if thou dwellest here some eight
days I shall see thee again belike, since thereafter I get
me eastward on a hard and long journey not without peril.
How sayest thou?"

"I wot not," quoth Ralph looking at Richard. Said Richard:
"Thou mayst wot well, master Clement, that my lord is anhungered
of the praise of the folks, and is not like to abide in a mere
merchant-town till the mould grow on his back." "Well, well,"
said Clement, "however that may be, I have now done my matters
with this cloth-lord, Blaise, and he has my florins in his pouch:
so will not ye twain come with me and drink a cup till he hath
done his talk with these magnates?"

Ralph was nothing loth, for besides that he loved master Clement,
and that his being in company was like having a piece of his home anigh him,
he hoped to hear some tidings concerning the Well at the World's End.

So he and Richard went with master Clement to the Christopher, a fair
ale-house over against the Great Church, and sat down to good wine;
and Ralph asked of Clement many things concerning dame Katherine his gossip,
and Clement told him all, and that she was well, and had been to Upmeads,
and had seen King Peter and the mother of Ralph; and how she had assuaged
his mother's grief at his departure by forecasting fair days for her son.
All this Ralph heard gladly, though he was somewhat shamefaced withal, and sat
silent and thinking of many matters. But Richard took up the word and said:
"Which way camest thou from Wulstead, master Clement?" "The nighest way
I came," said Clement, "through the Woods Perilous." Said Richard:
"And they of the Dry Tree, heardest thou aught of them?" "Yea, certes,"