CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
HOW I ENLISTED ON A NEW SERVICE.
London was merry-making, with bonfires and pealing of bells, when Will Peake and I entered it.

Every day that passed, men took in more of the great victory which had been gained against the King of Spain, and rejoiced louder and louder at the deliverance God had vouchsafed the land.
So, when it became known (as it soon did among our old friends), that Will and I had fought in that glorious fight, we lacked neither food nor shelter for our poor bodies.

At first Will fared better than I; for he was monstrous little altered from the swaggering lad who tried a bout with me years before at Finsbury Fields.

But as for me, men looked once, twice, and thrice at me before they would believe it was Humphrey Dexter.

And when one day in a tavern I came upon a mirror I learned the cause.