Corbett felt a gloom over the city and recalled Burnell's words about old quarrels festering like pus in the streets and alleyways of the city. He bought a penny loaf from a baker's last batch and snatched mouthfuls of it as he walked up Fish Street, picking his way around the puddles and heaps of rubbish, trying to block out the rank smell from the fish stalls. An empty charcoal wagon clattered past, its driver as black as the devil but evidently pleased at a good day's trade. Corbett drew in under the porch of a house to let it pass, noticing that across the street, a solitary figure sat locked by the hands in the stocks, a rotten fish dangling round his neck. Some crafty fishmonger, Corbett thought, caught by his own guild or the ever inquisitive city authorities for selling bad produce and so sentenced to public ridicule.

Corbett walked on and turned into Cheapside, a broad avenue which cut east to west across the city and the focal point of London's trade. The houses were bigger and grander here. Two or three storeys high, with windows glazed with horn, the wattled daub clean and the umbers and gables brightly painted, most of them displaying the arms of the Guild of Goldsmiths. At one of these houses, Corbett stopped and knocked at the heavy wooden door. There was a rattle of chains and locks and the door swung slightly open on its thick stout leather hinges. A burly porter, carrying a cresset torch of spluttering pitch, brusquely asked Corbett's business. The clerk curbed his anger at the man's rudeness and asked to speak with the merchant, John de Guisars. The porter was set to slam the door in Corbett's face when a small, rotund figure appeared, standing on tiptoe to see him.

"Why, " he exclaimed, almost pushing his retainer aside. "It is Hugh Corbett. Come to deposit more monies, Master Clerk?"