"Here is a noble lord," said I,
"who is worthy such respect from all these!" "Wert thou to take
everything to consideration thou wouldst speak differently. This lord
comes from the Street of Pleasure, she is of the Street of Pride, and yon
old man who is conversing with him comes from the Street of Lucre, and
has a mortgage on almost every acre of my lord's, and is come to-day to
complete the loan." We drew nigh to hear the conversation. "In sooth,
sir," Old Money-bags was saying, "I would not for all that I possess that
you should lack anything which lies in my power to enable you to appear
your own true self this day, especially seeing that you have met so
beautiful and lovely a lady as madam here" (the wily dog knowing full
well what she was). "By the --- by the --- ," said the lord, "next to
gazing at her beauty, my greatest pleasure was to hearken to your fair
reasons; I had liefer pay you interest than get money elsewhere free."
"Indeed, my lord," said one of his chief friends called Flatterer,
"nuncle pays you not a whit less respect than is due to you, but an it
please you, he has bestowed upon her ladyship scarce the half her mead of
praise.
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