e, for
no wine followed the gimlet. So we went on to another, and another,
and another, till we tried half a score of them, and all with the same
result. Upon this I seized a hammer which was lying by and sounded
the casks, but none of them seeming empty, I at last broke the lid of
one--and what do you think it contained?"

A variety of responses were returned by the laughing assemblage, during
which Patch sought to impose silence upon his opponent. But Will Sommers
was not to be checked.

"It contained neither vinegar, nor oil, nor lead," he said, "but gold;
ay, solid bars of gold-ingots. Every hogshead was worth ten thousand
pounds, and more."

"Credit him not, my masters," cried Patch, amid the roars of the
company; "the whole is a mere fable--an invention. His grace has no such
treasure. The truth is, Will Sommers got drunk upon some choice Malmsey,
and then dreamed he had been broaching casks of gold."

"It is no fable, as you and your master will find when the king comes
to sift the matter," replied Will. "This will be a richer result to
him than was ever produced by your alchemical experiments, good Signor
Domingo Lamelyn."

"It is false!--I say false!" screamed Patch, "let the cellars be
searched, and I will stake my head nothing is found."

"Stake thy cap, and there may be some meaning in it," said Will,
plucking Patch's cap from his head and elevating it on his truncheon.
"Here is an emblem of the Cardinal of York," he cried, pointing to it.

A roar of laughter from the company followed this sally, and Hob and Nob
looked up in placid wonderment.

"I shall die with laughing," cried Simon Quanden, holding his fat sides,
and addressing his spouse, who was leaning upon his shoulder.

In the meantime Patch sprang to his feet, and, gesticulating with rage
and fury, cried, "Thou hast done well to steal my cap and bells, for
they belong of right to thee. Add my folly to thy own, and thou wilt
be a fitting servant to thy master; or e'en give him the cap, and then
there will be a pair of ye."

"Who is the fool now, I should like to know?" rejoined Will Sommers
gravely. "I call you all to witness that he has spoken treason."

While this was passing Shoreditch had advanced with a flagon of Malmsey
to Mabel, but she was so interested in the quarrel between the two
jesters that she heeded him not; neither did she attend to Nicholas
Clamp, who was trying to explain to her what was going forward. But just
as Pat