person of the doctor of physics, rich with the profits of the
pestilence--the busy sergeant-of-law, 'that ever seemed busier than
he was'--the hollow-cheeked clerk of Oxford with his love of books
and short sharp sentences that disguise a latent tenderness which
breaks out at last in the story of Griseldis. Around them crowd
types of English industry; the merchant; the franklin in whose house
'it snowed of meat and drink'; the sailor fresh from frays in the
Channel; the buxom wife of Bath; the broad-shouldered miller; the
haberdasher, carpenter, weaver, dyer, tapestry-maker, each in the
livery of his craft; and last the honest ploughman who would dyke
and delve for the poor without hire."

Smilingly as Chaucer may have gazed upon this goodly company, his
delight at their arrival paled before the radiant pleasure of mine
host, for a poet on the lookout for a subject can hardly have
welcomed the advent of the pilgrims with such an interested
anticipation of profit as the innkeeper whose rooms they were to
occupy and whose food and wines they were to consume. Henry Bailley
was equal to the auspicious occasion.

"Greet chere made our hoste us everichon,
And to the soper sette he us anon;
And served us with vitaille at the beste.
Strong was the wyn, and wel to drinke us leste."

But the host of the Tabard was more than an efficient caterer; he
was something of a diplomatist also. Taking advantage of that glow
of satisfaction which is the psychological effect of physical needs
generously satisfied, he appears to have had no difficulty in
getting the pilgrims to pay their "rekeninges," and having attained