At this
Ascyltos could hardly keep his countenance; but the noise being over,
We see, said he, how every one likes his own best, give us our coat,
and let them take the mantle.
The country-man and the woman lik'd the exchange well enough, but a
sort of petty-foggers, most of whose business was such night practice,
having a mind to get the mantle themselves, as importunately required,
that both mantle and coat should be left in their hands, and the judge
would hear their complaints on the morrow: For it was not the things
alone that seem'd to be in dispute, but quite another matter to be
enquir'd into, to wit, a strong suspicion of robbery on both sides.
At last it was agreed to put both into some indifferent hand, till the
right were determin'd; when presently one, I know not who, with a bald
pate, and a face full of pimples, he had been formerly a kind of
solicitor, steps out of the rout, and laying hold on the mantle, said
he'd be security it should be forth-coming the next day: when in truth
he intended nothing more, but that having gotten it into hucksters
hands, it might be smugled among them, as believing we would never
come to own it, for fear of being taken up for it; for our part we
were as willing as he; and an accident befriended both of us: For the
country-man thinking scorn of it, that we demanded to have the patcht
coat given us, threw it at Ascyltos's head, and discharging us of
everything but the mantle, required that to be secur'd as the only
cause of the dispute.
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