his misfortune hath befallen him, and thus win him heavenly crowns."

"Indeed, sir," began Bardolph, "I doubt--"

"Doubt not, sirrah!" cried Sir John, testily; and continued, in a
virtuous manner: "Was not the apostle reproved for that same sin? Thou
art a Didymus, Bardolph;--an incredulous paynim, a most unspeculative
rogue! Have I carracks trading in the Indies? Have I robbed the exchequer
of late? Have I the Golden Fleece for a cloak? Nay, it is paltry gimlet,
and that augurs badly. Why, does this knavish watchman take me for a
raven to feed him in the wilderness? Tell him there are no such ravens
hereabout; else had I ravenously limed the house-tops and set springes in
the gutters. Inform him that my purse is no better lined than his own
broken skull: it is void as a beggar's protestations, or a butcher's
stall in Lent; light as a famished gnat, or the sighing of a new-made
widower; more empty than a last year's bird-nest, than a madman's eye,
or, in fine, than the friendship of a king."

"But you have wealthy friends, Sir John," suggested the hostess of the
Boar's Head Tavern, whose impatience had but very hardly waited for this
opportunity to join in the talk. "Yes, I warrant you, Sir John. Sir John,
you have a many wealthy friends; you cannot deny that, Sir John."

"Friends, dame?" asked the knight, and cowered closer to the fire, as
though he were a little cold. "I have no friends since Hal is King. I
had, I grant you, a few score of acquaintances whom I taught to play at
dice; paltry young blades of the City, very unfledged juvenals! Setting
my knighthood and my valor aside, if I did swear friendship with these,
I did swear to a lie. But this is a censorious and muddy-minded world, so
that, look you, even these sprouting aldermen, these foul bacon-fed