Said Richard: "Thou mayst wot well, master Clement, that my lord is anhungered of the praise of the folks, and is not like to abide in a mere merchant-town till the mould grow on his back." "Well, well," said Clement, "however that may be, I have now done my matters with this cloth-lord, Blaise, and he has my florins in his pouch: so will not ye twain come with me and drink a cup till he hath done his talk with these magnates ?" Ralph was nothing loth, for besides that he loved master Clement, and that his being in company was like having a piece of his home anigh him, he hoped to hear some tidings concerning the Well at the World's End.
So he and Richard went with master Clement to the Christopher, a fair ale-house over against the Great Church, and sat down to good wine; and Ralph asked of Clement many things concerning dame Katherine his gossip, and Clement told him all, and that she was well, and had been to Upmeads, and had seen King Peter and the mother of Ralph; and how she had assuaged his mother's grief at his departure by forecasting fair days for her son.

All this Ralph heard gladly, though he was somewhat shamefaced withal, and sat silent and thinking of many matters.

But Richard took up the word and said: "Which way camest thou from Wulstead, master Clement ?" "The nighest way I came," said Clement, "through the Woods Perilous." Said Richard: "And they of the Dry Tree, heardest thou aught of them ?" "Yea, certes," quoth Clement, "for I fell in with their Bailiff, and paid him due scot for the passage of the Wood; he knoweth me withal, and we talked together." "And had he any tidings to tell thee of the champions ?" said Richard.
Said Clement, "Great tidings maybe, how that there was a rumour that they had lost their young Queen and Lady; and if that be true, it will go nigh to break their hearts, so sore as they loved her.

And that will make them bitter and fierce, till their grief has been slaked by the blood of men.

And that the more as their old Queen abideth still, and she herself is ever of that mind." Ralph hearkened, and his heart was wounded that other men should speak of his beloved: but he heard how Richard said: "Hast thou ever known why that company of champions took the name of the Dry Tree ?" "Why, who should know that, if thou knowest it not, Richard of Swevenham ?" said Clement: "Is it not by the token of the Dry Tree that standeth in the lands on the hither side of the Wall of the World ?" Richard nodded his head; but Ralph cried out: "O Master Clement, and hast thou seen it, the Wall of the World ?" "Yea, afar off, my son," said he; "or what the folk with me called so; as to the Dry Tree, I have told thee at Wulstead that I have seen it not, though I have known men who have told me that they have seen it." "And must they who find the Well at the World's End come by the Dry Tree ?" "Yea, surely," said Clement.