not obliged nor any way bound to feed and nourish for
nought a porter whom he had never seen before with
the smoke of his roast meat, and thereupon swore that
if he would not forthwith content and satisfy him
with present payment for the repast which he had thereby
got, that he would take his crooked staves from off
his back; which, instead of having loads thereafter
laid upon them, should serve for fuel to his kitchen
fires. Whilst he was going about so to do, and
to have pulled them to him by one of the bottom rungs
which he had caught in his hand, the sturdy porter
got out of his grip, drew forth the knotty cudgel,
and stood to his own defence. The altercation
waxed hot in words, which moved the gaping hoidens
of the sottish Parisians to run from all parts thereabouts,
to see what the issue would be of that babbling strife
and contention. In the interim of this dispute,
to very good purpose Seyny John, the fool and citizen
of Paris, happened to be there, whom the cook perceiving,
said to the porter, Wilt thou refer and submit unto
the noble Seyny John the decision of the difference
and controversy which is betwixt us? Yes, by
the blood of a goose, answered the porter, I am content.
Seyny John the fool, finding that the cook and porter
had compromised the determination of their variance
and debate to the discretion of his award and arbitrament,
after that the reasons on either side whereupon was
grounded the mutual fierceness of their brawling jar
had been to the full displayed and laid open before
him, commanded the porter to draw out of the fob of
his belt a piece of money, if he had it. Whereupon
the porter immediately without delay, in reverence
to the authority of such a judicious umpire, put the
tenth part of a silver Philip into his hand.
This little Philip Seyny John took; then set it on
his left shoulder, to try by feeling if it was of a
sufficient weight. After that, laying it on the
palm of his hand, he made it ring and tingle, to understand
by the ear if it was of a good alloy in the metal
whereof it was composed. Thereafter he put it
to the ball or apple of his left eye, to explore by
the sight if it was well stamped and marked; all which
being done, in a profound silence of the whole doltish
people who were there spectators of this pageantry,
to the great hope of the cook’s and despair
of the porter’s prevalency in the suit that was
in agitation, he finally caused the porter to make
it sound several times upon the stall of the cook’s
shop. Then with a presidential majesty holding
his bauble sceptre-like in his hand, muffling his
head with a hood of marten skins, each side whereof
had the resemblance of an ape’s face sprucified
up with ears of pasted paper, and having about his
neck a bucked ruff, raised, furrowed, and ridged with
pointing sticks of the shape and fashion of small
organ pipes, he first with all the force of his lungs
coughed two or three times, and then with an audible
voice pronounced this following sentence: The