Page:Tales from Chaucer.djvu/104

 gaped like a furnace. He was a roaring roystering madcap; who upon occasion would try the strength of his conscience by filching his customers' corn, and giving them false tales. Yet, withal, he had 'a thumb of gold,' as the old saying goes respecting honest millers; and I believe was no worse than his brethren. He wore a white coat with a blue hood, and a sword and buckler at his side. He was a performer on the bagpipe, and with it marshalled us out of town.

There was a gentle, who was a pattern to all caterers and purchasers of provision; for whether he paid in ready money or went upon credit, he always so managed his accounts as to have a surplus of cash in hand. Now, this appears to me like a special gift from heaven, that an ignorant man of this stamp should be able to outwit a whole bevy of learned clerks. He had more than thirty masters, acute in the law, a dozen of whom were fit to be stewards to any nobleman in the