- Tristram meets with other travelers on the road: drum-makers, Franciscans, and fig-sellers. Our hero is planning on writing up these stories and others in a whole book of "Plain Stories," because he's industrious like that. He's got lots of them, because he stops to talk to everyone he sees.
- One incident particularly gets him going.
- Some peasants were celebrating the end of the day with a dance and a game that involves piercing a ring with a lance. The mule stops dead in its tracks, so Tristram decides to stay and watch. A young woman runs up to him and asks him to participate—and she's got a big slit in her petticoat. Get it, Tristram.
- They dance, and Tristram has a great time. No doubt about it, he's got game. Tristram takes a moment to remember the incident fondly.
- But he's determined to stop digressing and tell the story of Toby's courtship.