anything I had heard before; and yet he said it all as if it was common
talk among his kind, where he came from; and it was very consonant with
what the King had set me to do, which was to hear what the common people
had to say. My gorge rose at the man again and again; but I was a
tolerable actor in those days, and restrained myself very well. When he
went at last he clapped me on the back, as if it were I who had done all
the bragging.

"You are the right kind of fellow," he said, "and, by God, I wish there
were more of us. You will remember my name--Mr. Rumbald the maltster--I
am to be heard of here at any time, for I come up on my business every
week--though I was not always a maltster."

I promised I would remember him: and indeed after a while all England
has remembered him ever since.

* * * * *

It was that same evening, I think (for my diary is confused at this
time, and no wonder), that when I came back to my lodgings about
supper-time, I found that a man had been from Mr. Chiffinch to bid me
come to Whitehall as soon as I returned; but the messenger had not
seemed greatly perturbed, James told me; so I changed my clothes and had
my supper and set out.

It would be about half-past seven o'clock when I came to Mr.
Chiffinch's; and when I tapped I had no answer. I tapped again; and then
a servant of Mr. Chiffinch's came running up the stairs (who had left
his post, I suspect) and asked me what I wanted there. When I told him
he seemed surprised, and he said that Mr. Chiffinch had company in his