THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
these conjectures concluded therefrom that the poor gentleman's head was dazed and somewhat muddled, but we must not say hard things of them on this account, because, you know, they lived a long while ago and were ignorant of true science. But in our days if a man desire to make a noise in the world, and to be accounted a philosopher whose thoughts are deep down below the form and nature of things, he has only to write his Meditations or Considerations declaring in quaint and quidditative terms how uncertain it is whether "I" is "I". And all this is quite right, but to each age pertain its own perfections. But my lord, the ladies and the knights waited anxiously for Sir Nicholas his lips to open to better purpose; and had good hopes of hearing a fine history when the Knight of the Dial had drunk his wits back again. At last my lady Joan could wait no longer, but cried "Sir Nicholas, Sir Nicholas begin your tale, or else it will be cock-crow before you are half-way through." "It shall be so," answered he, "I will tell all and would have begun before were not my adventures so wonderful as to be almost beyond belief; but now since you bid me, I will omit nothing." Then the company about the board was hushed to silence, and the fool closed one eye, while the chins of Maistre Jehan and Master Geoffrey sought their hands, since it was their function to chronicle what was to come. Then Sir Nicholas Kemeys, the Knight of the Dial began his relation of
