"I'm wanted badly by the chancellor, curse you, if you must know.

I thought he might be behind you." "Don't worry about that," said Maurice, to whom this declaration seemed plausible.

"We'll talk as we go along." And Johann loosened his tongue and poured into Maurice's ear a tale which, being half a truth, had all the semblance of straightforwardness.
What he played for was time; to gain time and to lull his captor's suspicions.

Maurice was not familiar with the lower town; Johann was.
A few yards ahead there was an alley he knew, and once in it he could laugh at all pursuit.

It might be added that if Maurice knew but little of the lower town, he knew still less about Johann.
Suddenly, in the midst of his narrative, Johann put his leg stiffly between his enemy's and gave a mighty jerk with his arm, with the result that Maurice, wholly unprepared, went sprawling to the pavement.