At once there was a clamor, all bidding in one breath for my custom.
So finishing my breakfast, I walked out with them to the tavern yard,
where I had my pick among the sorriest-looking dozen of nags in
England, and finally bought from the red-haired man, for five pounds,
bridle, saddle, and a flea-bitten grey that seem'd more honestly
raw-boned than the rest. And the owner wept tears at the parting
with his beast, and thereby added a pang to the fraud he had already
put upon me. And I rode from the tavern door suspecting laughter in
the eyes of every passer-by.

The day ('twas drawing near noon as I started) was cold and clear,
with a coating of rime over the fields: and my horse's feet rang
cheerfully on the frozen road. His pace was of the soberest: but, as
I was no skilful rider, this suited me rather than not. Only it was
galling to be told so, as happened before I had gone three miles.

'Twas my friend the pickpocket: and he sat before a fire of dry
sticks a little way back from the road. His scanty hair, stiff as a
badger's, now stood upright around his batter'd cap, and he look'd
at me over the bushes, with his hook'd nose thrust forward like a
bird's beak.

"Bien lightmans, comrade--good day! 'Tis a good world; so stop and
dine."

I pull'd up my grey.

"Glad you find it so," I answered; "you had a nigh chance to compare
it with the next, last night."