As a sign of peace and good-will, my humble comrade, I will eat whatsoever bread and meat you may place before me; for in truth my teeth have lost their cunning, and he who late warbled elegiacs hath almost forgot how to swallow a cup of vulgar sack." 'Twas not long before with Jeannette's aid I set before him a meal the very sight of which filled his eyes with tears, and set his hand a trembling.

It seemed kinder not to stand by while he devoured it; yet even in the adjoining room we could hear him, betwixt his mouthfuls, talk of Hebe and Ganymede, and utter brave speeches about Venus who ever haunted his wandering steps, and in mortal guise waited on her favoured servant.

By which I understood he was struck with the beauty of my sweet Jeannette; for the which I forgave him much.
But when, after a little, we returned to see how he fared, he was fallen forward on the table in a deep sleep, from which it never even roused him when I lifted him in my arms and laid him on a clean straw bed in the corner of the office.

And for twenty hours by the clock did he sleep there, never turning a limb, till it seemed a charity to rouse him and give him more food.
Then when he found himself refreshed and filled, he gave us his news; which, shorn of all its flourishes, was shortly this.
After he had written his letter from Chester, he was detained many a week in custody as a vagabond and a lunatic.

And at last, shaking the dust of that city from his feet, he tramped to the next, where a like fate awaited him.