growing lad, because there was a plague in London he had come down to
Hastings to visit us. He only stayed a week, however, because he said
that the sea air tied up his stomach and that he would rather risk
the plague with a good stomach than leave it behind him with a bad
one--though I think it was his business he thought of, not his stomach.

He was a strange old man, not unlike my mother, but with a nose more
hooked, small dark eyes, and a bald head on which he set a cap of
velvet. Even in the heat of summer he was always cold and wore a frayed
fur robe, complaining much if he came into a draught of air. Indeed he
looked like a Jew, though a good Christian enough, and laughed about
it, because he said that this appearance of his served him well in his
trade, since Jews were always feared, and it was held to be impossible
to overreach them.

For the rest I only recalled that he examined me as to my book learning
which did not satisfy him, and went about valuing all our goods and
fishing-boats, showing my mother how we were being cheated and might
earn more than we did. When he departed he gave me a gold piece and said
that Life was nothing but vanity, and that I must pray for his soul when
he was dead as he was sure it would need such help, also that I ought
to put the gold piece out to interest. This I did by buying with it a
certain fierce mastiff dog I coveted that had been brought on a ship
from Norway, which dog bit some great man in our town, who hauled my
mother before the bailiff about it and caused the poor beast to be
killed, to my great wrath.

Now that I came to think of it, I had liked my Uncle John well enough
although he was so different from others. Why should I not go to him?
Because I did not wish to sit in a shop in London, I who loved the sea