How Tom Long the Carrier met with a Young Man upon
the way, with what happened to them,
and how they were entertained by an Hostess.

Tom Long being newly set up a carrier, as he was travelling he happened to take up a young lad, who had straggled from his parents to play the truant, which Tom perceiving, entertained him into his service; but they had not gone far before their stomachs were up, so they resolved at the next place to take a bit, where, as soon as they came, they demanded what was for to eat. The hostess, being one of Seldom Cleanly's daughters, said there was nothing but eggs, of which, she said, she would make them a froize; and seeing them to come in, in a full breast and an empty stomach, she (like a slut as she was) resolved to give them their bellies full before they went; and so, with some three or four good eggs, she mixed as many bad ones, some addle and rotten, and others ready for to hatch; and having set them down at a certain wash block, which served instead of a table, she set before them as good a froize as any woman possibly could make of coarse materials, making her sauce alike suitable, being nothing else but kitchen stuff melted a little—oil as good as ever was burned. Tom and the young man fell presently to it, with stomachs as greedy as hogs, swallowing down all by wholesale, tag-rag and long-tail, without any chewing, although they conceited something cracking in their teeth like young bones. Yet hunger, which is the best sauce, made every morsel sweet, although it had but an ill going down with it, and worse troubled their patience afterwards, for they had no sooner eaten of it, but like squeezy stomachs they began to cast backwards and forwards; and being in this pitiful pickle, they called for their hostess, who, thinking to receive her reckoning, was paid in her own coin; for, having some of their froize left, Tom furiously cast it on her face, which stuck as fast as a plaister to the wall, insomuch that for a while she lost her eyesight; which being done, Tom departed without paying anything for his dinner.