“In the first stave, gramercy! there is an awful verity,” quoth Sir Thomas; “but I wonder that a dean should let his skewer slip out, and his fat catch fire so wofully, in the second.  Light stuff, Silas, fit only for ale-houses.”

Master Silas was nettled in the nose, and answered, —

“Let me see the man in Warwickshire, and in all the counties round, who can run at such a rate with so light a feather in the palm of his hand.  I am no poet, thank God! but I know what folks can do, and what folks cannot do.”

“Well, Silas,” replied Sir Thomas, “after thy thanksgiving for being no poet, let us have the rest of the piece.”

“The rest!” quoth Master Silas.  “When the ale hath done with its humming, it is time, methinks, to dismiss it.  Sir, there never was any more; you might as well ask for more after Amen or the see of Canterbury.”

Sir Thomas was dissatisfied, and turned off the discourse; and peradventure he grew more inclined to be gracious unto Willy from the slight rub his chaplain had given him, were it only for the contrariety.  When he had collected his thoughts he was determined to assert his supremacy on the score of poetry.

“Deans, I perceive, like other quality,” said he, “cannot run on long together.  My friend, Sir Everard Starkeye, could never overleap four bars.  I remember but one composition of his, on a young lady who mocked at his inconsistency, in calling her sometimes his Grace and at other times his Muse.

’My Grace shall Fanny Carew be,
   While here she deigns to stay;
And (ah, how sad the change for me!)
   My Muse when far away!’

And when we laughed at him for turning his back upon her after the fourth verse, all he could say for himself was, that he would rather a game at all fours with Fanny, than ombre and Picquet with the finest furbelows in Christendom.  Men of condition do usually want a belt in the course.”

Whereunto said Master Silas, —

“Men out of condition are quite as liable to lack it, methinks.”

“Silas!  Silas!” replied the knight, impatiently, “prithee keep to thy divinity, thy strong hold upon Zion; thence none that faces thee can draw thee without being bitten to the bone.  Leave poetry to me.”

“With all my heart,” quoth Master Silas, “I will never ask a belt from her, until I see she can afford to give a shirt.  She has promised a belt, indeed,—­not one, however, that doth much improve the wind,—­to this lad here, and will keep her word; but she was forced to borrow the pattern from a Carthusian friar, and somehow it slips above the shoulder.”

“I am by no means sure of that,” quoth Sir Thomas.  “He shall have fair play.  He carrieth in his mind many valuable things, whereof it hath pleased Providence to ordain him the depository.  He hath laid before us certain sprigs of poetry from Oxford, trim as pennyroyal, and larger leaves of household divinity, the most mildly-savoured,—­ pleasant in health and wholesome in sickness.”