rogues, have fled my friendship of late, and my reputation hath grown
somewhat more murky than Erebus. No matter! I walk alone, as one that
hath the pestilence. No matter! But I grow old; I am not in the vaward of
my youth, mistress."

He nodded his head with extreme gravity; then reached for a cup of sack
that Bardolph held at the knight's elbow.

"Indeed, I know not what your worship will do," said Mistress Quickly,
rather sadly.

"Faith!" answered Sir John, finishing the sack and grinning in a somewhat
ghastly fashion; "unless the Providence that watches over the fall of a
sparrow hath an eye to the career of Sir John Falstaff, Knight, and so
comes to my aid shortly, I must needs convert my last doublet into a
mask, and turn highwayman in my shirt. I can take purses yet, ye Uzzite
comforters, as gaily as I did at Gadshill, where that scurvy Poins, and
he that is now King, and some twoscore other knaves did afterward assault
me in the dark; yet I peppered some of them, I warrant you!"

"You must be rid of me, then, master," Bardolph interpolated. "I for one
have no need of a hempen collar."

"Ah, well!" said the knight, stretching himself in his chair as the
warmth of the liquor coursed through his inert blood; "I, too, would be
loth to break the gallows' back! For fear of halters, we must alter our
way of living; we must live close, Bardolph, till the wars make us
Croesuses or food for crows. And if Hal but hold to his bias, there will
be wars: I will eat a piece of my sword, if he have not need of it
shortly. Ah, go thy ways, tall Jack; there live not three good men