Crossword-Solution: JAPERS 6 letters, 5 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 15

After he had left them, the following brief dialogue took place between these two worthies:-- “Hourigan, blazes to me but I'm shot.” “Hell's perdition to the unlucky villain--so am I--where are you shot, Mark?” “By japers, the blood's pourin' out from me in the thigh, an' I'm afeard I'm done for--blast his unlucky hand, the villain; I wisht I had my dagger in him.

Well sure they're gettin' a touch of it now themselves; by japers, some o' them knows what it is to have the back and belly brought together, or to go hungry to bed, as the sayin' is; but go on, Dick, an' tell us how it was.” “Why, you see, we went back when we heard that the house was to be attacked, and only he escaped the way he did, it wouldn't be attacked; howaniver, you know it's wid O'Driscol--a short cooser to him, too, and he'll get it--it's wid O'Driscol he stops.

Mankind is represented by typical specimens of all sorts: knights, monks, parsons, workmen singing French songs, cooks crying: Hot pies! "Hote pyes, hote!" pardoners, pilgrims, preachers, beggars, janglers who will not work, japers and "mynstralles" that sell "glee." They are, or nearly so, the same beings Chaucer assembled at the "Tabard" inn, on the eve of his pilgrimage to Canterbury.

Both the tavern Boniface and his bar-keeper witness it, standing in the door as their guests go off; the landlord chuckling at the large pile of glittering coins left behind; Johnny scratching his carroty poll, and saying,-- "Be japers! they intind clearin' that fellow Quantrell out.

Men and women alike fled from their miserable homes to the ale-house, where they drank long draughts of cheap ale, and, in imitation of their superiors in station, listened to a low class of "japers" who recited "rhymes of Robin Hood," or told coarse and obscene stories for the sake of a share of the ale, or such few small coins as could be drawn from the ragged pouches of the bacchanals.