Lakyn, who held it in his hand--for the strap by which it was suspended had been quite cut through--immediately presented it to the King upon his knee; and James, taking it from him, without further ceremony undid the loop and button, and put his hand into the inside. Feeling, however, that some degree of ridicule might attach to him for displaying the same curiosity which he had condemned so severely the minute before, he began a discourse in justification of his own proceeding, full of all those quaint niceties and hair's-breadth distinctions on which he prided himself. He explained, in the first place, in broad general terms, that conduct which might be criminal in a subject was perfectly justifiable in a king. He then went on to show more at large that the impropriety or propriety of a man's actions depended entirely upon the circumstances and the position of the man himself, exemplifying his truisms with various homely and strangely contrasted instances, from the rights of a schoolmaster in birch and cane to the rights of a monarch on the throne; and certainly in both cases he was inclined to stretch prerogative sometimes beyond its just limits. He ended, however, after a discourse of a quarter of an hour, during which time his fingers still remained in the bag, by declaring that evidently the man's pretext of curiosity was false and absurd. "For why," asked the King, "should he have a greater desire to see what was in one bag than in another?" "Why, may it please your majesty," replied Lakyn, "I do think the man said true in that, for knowing that I was bearing a letter to your Majesty's Court from the Lady Arabella Stuart,--that is, not to say that he did know it, but he might, for all I can say to the contrary.--However, he followed me all the way down from Cambridgeshire, and as there were more people with him, I can't help thinking it was a plot to get the letter and see the contents." "Ha!" cried the King, turning pale--"a plot already? Did we not tell you, Sir Robert, did we not tell you, Taylor, that it would not be long first?--Why, what's the matter there? The man seems to have tumbled down," and he pointed with his hand to the other side of the room, where there was a good deal of bustle about the spot where the personage who called himself Winter had been standing in custody of a pursuivant. "What's the matter there, I say?" cried the King. "Will nobody answer their Sovereign Lord and Master?" "It is the priest, your Majesty," said the pursuivant; "he has fallen down in a swoon, after complaining much of the heat." "Let him take care that he get not to a hotter place," answered James; "but take him out, man, take him out, and keep him in the ante-room till further orders.--Now, man, what is this you tell me?" he continued, turning to Lakyn; "a plot, did you say?"