"What! hath he retorted upon thee too sharply? "replied the king,
laughing. "If so, challenge him to the combat, and settle the grievance
with thy lathen dagger. But refer not the matter to me. I am no judge in
fools' quarrels."
"Your own excepted," muttered Will. "This is not a quarrel that can be
so adjusted," he added aloud. "I charge this rascal Patch with
speaking disrespectfully of your highness in the hearing of the whole
kitchen. And I also charge his master the cardinal with having secreted
in his cellars at Hampton a vast amount of treasure, obtained by
extortion, privy dealings with foreign powers, and other iniquitous
practices, and which ought of right to find its way to your royal
exchequer."
"'And which shall find its way thither, if thou dost not avouch a fable,"
replied the king.
"Your majesty shall judge," rejoined Will. And he repeated the story
which he had just before related.
"Can this be true?" exclaimed Henry at its close.
"It is false, your highness, every word of it," cried Patch, throwing
himself at the king's feet, "except so far as relates to our visits to the
cellar, where, I shame to speak it, we drank so much that our senses
clean forsook us.
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