“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.”

“All in good time.  But first, young sir, where did you get that fine armour?  If you stole it, it should be better hid.”

“Stole it!” I began in wrath.  “Am I a London chapman——?”

“I think not, though you may be before all is done, for who knows what vile tricks Fortune will play us?  Well, if you did not steal it, mayhap you slew the wearer and are a murderer, for I see black blood on the steel.”

“Murderer!” I gasped.

“Aye, just as you say John Grimmer is a knave.  But if not, then perchance you slew the French knight who wore it on Hastings Hill, ere you loosed the three arrows at the mouth of the cave near Minnes Rock.”

Now I gaped at him.

“Shut your mouth, young man, lest those teeth of yours should fall out.  You wonder how I know?  Well, my friend John Grimmer, the goldsmith knave, has a magic crystal which he purchased from one who brought it from the East, and I saw it in that crystal.”

As he spoke, as though by chance he pushed back the hood that covered his head, revealing a wrinkled old face with a mocking mouth which drooped at one corner, a mouth that I knew again, although many years had passed since I looked upon it as a boy.

“You are John Grimmer!” I muttered.

“Yes, Hubert of Hastings, I am that knave himself.  And now tell me, what did you do with the gold piece I gave you some twelve summers gone?”

Then I was minded to lie, for I feared this old man.  But thinking better of it, I answered that I had spent it on a dog.  He laughed outright and said: 

“Pray that it is not an omen and that you may not follow the gold piece to the dogs.  Well, I like you for speaking the truth when you are tempted to do otherwise.  Will you be pleased to shelter for a while beneath the roof of John Grimmer, the merchant knave?”

“You mock me, sir,” I stammered.

“Perhaps, perhaps!  But there’s many a true word spoken in jest; for if you do not know it now you will learn it afterwards that we are all knaves, each in his own fashion, who if we do not deceive others, at least deceive ourselves, and I perhaps more than most.  Vanity of vanities!  All is vanity.”

Then, waiting for no reply, he drew a silver whistle from under his dusty robe and blew it, whereon—­so swiftly that I marvelled whether he were waiting—­a stout-built serving man appeared to whom he said: