I'd been down at the tavern having some fun with a milch cow when a cull recognised me as the one who put the bite on his jem after I'd gotten him clear on some Bene Bowse last week, but not clear enough that he'd forgot my face, it seemed. Anyway, I didn't see the cull, but he saw me and told the beggar maker who cried beef. The bandog had me in ruffles before I was twig.

The prospect of being a babe in the wood was the least of my problems though, because I was also wanted for drawing the King's picture, and I knew that the fortune teller would be giving me the cramp word for that deed.

Fortunately for me, my amuser was also a bawd, and she kept the underdubber busy in the front of the jail while I took a screw to the darbies and slipped out the back window. I put the bite on the bandog's prad and got out of there as fast as it's hoofs would fly.

So now I'm a slipgibbet, but i'm a rug in our dive down at the waterfront with the Ark ruffians and other birds of a feather. I'm beginning to think though, that there's no such thing as darby, but it does pay to be good to the laced mutton.

Thieve's Cant