CHAP. V.] 



THE FOUKTH DAY. 



163 



honeysuckle hedge, and went to tell fortunes and cheat, and 

 get more money and lodging, in the next village. 



Group of Beggars. 



When these were gone we heard as high a contention 

 amongst the beggars, whether it was easiest to rip a cloak, 

 or to unrip a cloak ? One beggar affirmed it was all one ; 

 but that was denied, by asking her, if doing and undoing 

 were all one ? Then another said, 'twas easiest to unrip a 

 cloak, for that was to let it alone ; but she was answered, by 

 asking her, how she unript it if she let it alone ? And she 

 confest herself mistaken. These, and twenty such like 

 questions were proposed, with as much beggarly logic and 

 earnestness as was ever heard to proceed from the mouth of 

 the most pertinacious schismatic; and sometimes all the 

 beggars whose number was neither more nor less than the 

 poets' nine muses talked, all together, about this ripping 

 and unripping ; and so loud, that not one heard what the 

 other said. But, at last, one beggar craved audience, and 



Brown, "at one Denzy's, a barber over against St. Dunstan's Church, 

 Fleet-street ; '' which circums ances may have introduced him to Walton's 

 notice . Nico LAS. 



M 2 



