I had expected naught but the desolation and silence which I last remembered in the place, and it staggered me to find all going on as before.

No doubt here was some upstart printer, standing in my late master's shoes and working at his forfeited press! In no pleasant mood I walked, ragged and travel-stained as I was, into the shop.

Sure enough, it was Peter Stoupe, my late fellow-apprentice, who was whining, and beside him a new journeyman lugged at the press.
Peter knew me not at first, so changed and unkempt was I with my long journeyings.
"Come," said he, surlily, "bustle hence, thou varlet.

We keep nought here but sticks for rogues like thee to taste.

Get you gone!" And he advanced on me with the stick.
Just to remind him of old days, I whipped it from his hand and gave him a crack on the skull, which brought him to himself at once.
"Why," said he, dropping his jaw, and gaping at me as if I had been a ghost, "if it be not Humphrey Dexter, as I'm a sinner!" "As certain as thou art a sinner," said I, "it is none other.