Furthermore, let me warn thee against the same on account of the vast charges thou must stand at.  We Englishmen cannot find it in our hearts to murder a man without much difficulty, hesitation, and delay.  We have little or no invention for pains and penalties; it is only our acutest lawyers who have wit enough to frame them.  Therefore it behooveth your tragedy-man to provide a rich assortment of them, in order to strike the auditor with awe and wonder.  And a tragedy-man, in our country, who cannot afford a fair dozen of stabbed males, and a trifle under that mark of poisoned females, and chains enow to moor a whole navy in dock, is but a scurvy fellow at the best.  Thou wilt find trouble in purveying these necessaries; and then must come the gim-cracks for the second course,—­gods, goddesses, fates, furies, battles, marriages, music, and the maypole.  Hast thou within thee wherewithal?”

“Sir!” replied Billy, with great modesty, “I am most grateful for these ripe fruits of your experience.  To admit delightful visions into my own twilight chamber is not dangerous nor forbidden.  Believe me, sir, he who indulges in them will abstain from injuring his neighbour; he will see no glory in peril, and no delight in strife.

“The world shall never be troubled by any battles and marriages of mine, and I desire no other music and no other maypole than have lightened my heart at Stratford.”

Sir Thomas, finding him well-conditioned and manageable, proceeded:-

“Although I have admonished thee of sundry and insurmountable impediments, yet more are lying in the pathway.  We have no verse for tragedy.  One in his hurry hath dropped rhyme, and walketh like unto the man who wanteth the left-leg stocking.  Others can give us rhyme indeed, but can hold no longer after the tenth or eleventh syllable.  Now Sir Everard Starkeye, who is a pretty poet, did confess to Monsieur Dubois the potency of the French tragic verse, which thou never canst hope to bring over.

“‘I wonder, Monsieur Dubois!’ said Sir Everard, ’that your countrymen should have thought it necessary to transport their heavy artillery into Italy.  No Italian could stand a volley of your heroic verses from the best and biggest pieces.  With these brought into action, you never could have lost the battle of Pavia.’

“Now my friend Sir Everard is not quite so good a historian as he is a poet; and Monsieur Dubois took advantage of him.

“‘Pardon!  Monsieur Sir Everard!’ said Monsieur Dubois, smiling at my friend’s slip, ’We did not lose the battle of Pavia.  We had the misfortune to lose our king, who delivered himself up, as our kings always do, for the good and glory of his country.’

“‘How was this?’ said Sir Everard, in surprise.

“‘I will tell you, Monsieur Sir Everard!’ said Monsieur Dubois.  ’I had it from my own father, who fought in the battle, and told my mother, word for word.