JACK AND E LIZA HAD PAID ten pfennigs each at the town gate, then had their silks weighed, and paid duty on them (Eliza had sewn the ostrich-plumes between layers of petticoats, and they were not detected). From the gate a broad street ran north to the center of the town, no more than a musket-shot away. Climbing down from the saddle, Jack was startled by the feel of cobblestones under his feet for the first time in half a year. He was treading on ground that pushed back now, and he knew that his boots needed re-soling. The street was lined with vaulted orifices spewing noise; he felt continually under ambush from left and right, and kept patting his sword-pommel, then hating himself for behaving like a stupid peasant on his first trip to Paris. But Eliza was no less amazed, and kept backing into him, liking to feel his pressure against her back. Queer signs and effigies, frequently in gold leaf, loomed on the fronts of the buildings: a golden snake, a Turk's head, a red lion, a golden bear. So they were a bit like English taverns, which had effigies instead of names, so that people like Jack, who could not read, could know them. But they were not taverns. They were like large town-houses, with many windows, and each had this large vaulted opening giving way to a courtyard full of Bedlam.