that a few years would have made such a change? Every evil
thing that had been stamped underground had spawned and festered until
its vermin brood flooded the streets, and the godly wore themselves
driven to shun the light of day. Apollyon had indeed triumphed for a
while. A quiet man could not walk the highways without being elbowed
into the kennel by swaggering swashbucklers, or accosted by painted
hussies. Padders and michers, laced cloaks, jingling spurs, slashed
boots, tall plumes, bullies and pimps, oaths and blasphemies--I promise
you hell was waxing fat. Even in the solitude of one's coach one was not
free from the robber.'

'How that, sir?' asked Reuben.

'Why marry, in this wise. As I was the sufferer I have the best right
to tell the tale. Ye must know that after our reception--which was
cold enough, for we were about as welcome to the Privy Council as the
hearth-tax man is to the village housewife--we were asked, more as
I guess from derision than from courtesy, to the evening levee at
Buckingham Palace. We would both fain have been excused from going but
we feared that our refusal might give undue offence, and so hinder the
success of our mission. My homespun garments ware somewhat rough for
such an occasion, yet I determined to appear in them, with the addition
of a new black baize waistcoat faced with silk, and a good periwig, for
which I gave three pounds ten shillings in the Haymarket.'

The young Puritan opposite turned up his eyes and murmured something
about 'sacrificing to Dagon,' which fortunately for him was inaudible to
the high-spirited old man.

'It was but a worldly vanity,' quoth the Mayor; 'for, with all
deference, Sir Gervas Jerome, a man's own hair arranged with some taste,
and with perhaps a sprinkling of powder, is to my mind the fittest
ornament to his head. It is the contents and not the case which
availeth. Having donned this frippery, good Master Foster and I hired
a calash and drove to the Palace. We were deep in grave and, I trust,
profitable converse speeding through the endless streets, when of a
sudden I felt a sharp tug at my head, and my hat fluttered down on to my
knees. I raised my hands, and lo! they came upon my bare pate. The wig
had vanished. We were rolling down Fleet Street at the moment, and there
was no one in the calash save neighbour Foster, who sat as astounded as
I. We looked high and low, on the seats and beneath them, but not a sign
of the periwig was there