While I was staring at this sign and wondering emptily what kind of a
boat it was and of what nation were the folk who had sailed in her, a
man came down the garden path and leaned upon the gate, staring in turn
at me. He was old and strange-looking, being clad in a rusty gown with
a hood to it that was pulled over his head, so that I could only see a
white, peaked beard and a pair of brilliant black eyes which seemed to
pierce me as a shoemaker's awl pierces leather.

"What do you, young man," he asked in a high thin voice, "cumbering my
gate with those nags of yours? Would you sell that mail you have on the
pack-horse? If so I do not deal in such stuff, though it seems good of
its kind. So get on with it elsewhere."

"Nay, sir," I answered, "I have naught to sell who in this hive of
traders seek one bee and cannot find him."

"Hive of traders! Truly the great merchants of the Cheap would be
honoured. Have they stung you, then, already, young bumpkin from the
countryside, for such I write you down? But what bee do you seek? Stay,
now, let me guess. Is it a certain old knave named John Grimmer, who
trades in gold and jewels and other precious things and who, if he had
his deserts, should be jail?"

"Aye, aye, that's the man," I said.

"Surely he also will be honoured," exclaimed the old fellow with a
cackle. "He's a friend of mine and I will tell him the jest."

"If you would tell me where to find him it would be more seasonable."