Master Vallance, in spotless velvet doublet and breeches, and perfectly clean silk stockings, looked at him with contemptuous dislike.
"Take heed you scorch not the capon with your nose, roaring Ravenshaw," said the youth, quietly.
It was not Ravenshaw's habit to resent allusions to his character as a "roaring boy;" indeed he encouraged the popular idea which saddled him with that title, at that time applied to bullies of the taverns. But some circumstance of the moment, perhaps something in the young coxcomb's air of aristocratic ridicule, guided the epithet to a sensitive spot.
"_Captain_ Ravenshaw, by your leave," he said, instantly, in a loud tone, with an ironical show of a petitioner's deference.
"Forsooth, yes; a captain of the suburbs," replied the young gentleman, with a more pronounced sneer.
Now at this time--toward the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth--and for a long time after, certain of the suburbs of London were inhabited numerously by people of ill repute. There were, especially, women whom the law sometimes took in hand and sent to the Bridewell to break chalk, or treated to a public ride in a cart, as targets for rotten vegetables, addled eggs, and such projectiles. Many an unemployed soldier, or bully who called himself soldier, would bestow, or impose, his protection upon some one of these frail creatures in the time of her prosperity, exacting from her the means of livelihood. Hence did Ravenshaw see in the title of "captain of the suburbs" an insult little less than lay in that of "Apple-John," or "Apple-squire," itself.
When a gentleman calls another by the name of a bad thing, it is not necessarily implied that he thinks the other is that thing; but it is certain that he means to be defiantly offensive. Therefore, in this case, the captain's part was not to deny, but to resent. Not only must he keep up his reputation with the other gentlemen as a man not to be affronted, but he really was in a towering rage at being bearded with easy temerity by such a youngling.
"What!" quoth he. "Thou sprig! Thy wits are strayed away, methinks. Or has thy nurse been teaching thee to use a pert tongue?"
"Nay, save your own tongue for the tasting of yon capon. I speak only truth. Your reputation is well known."