“You would slay the young gentleman señor, you wicked cut-throat villain, you!” “Nay, by my hand I will not, if you will give me twenty honest busses, you neat imp, to heal my contusion.” “You swear, Englishman, upon your wicked beard, the young señor gentleman shall come to no hurt if I kiss you?” “I will swear, thou nice hussy, by the bones of all my ancestors in their Cornish cemetery, that young Don Cock-a-hoop shall go uncorrected for all his sauciness and pretension. With eight crowns in his wallet and a most unfathomable ignorance he drew his tuck on a right Pendragon. But so much effrontery shall go unvisited, mark you, at the price of twenty honest busses from those perfect lips of thine. If thou art not the most perfect thing in Spain, I am little better than a swaggerer.” “Put me down then, Englishman,” said the little wench as boldly as an ambassador; “and do you give the young gentleman señor his sword.” “So I will; but I would have you remark it, pretty titmouse, that I will be embraced with all the valiancy of thy nature. Ten on each side of my royal chaps, and one for good kindness right i’ th’ middle.” “Give the young gentleman señor his sword, then, you English villain.” So had this matter accosted the humour of Sir Richard Pendragon that he obeyed her. “Take it, young Spaniard,” said he with a magnificent air; “and do you consider it as your first lesson in the affairs of the world. I do perceive two precepts to whose attention your noble father does not appear to have directed you. The first is, never draw upon the premier swordsman of his age, so long as life hath any savour in it; and for the other, never lack the favour of a farthingale. Do I speak sooth, good girl?” “Yes, you do, you large villain,” said the little creature, with her two fierce eyes as black as sloes. “And now I will kiss you quickly, so that I may have done. I shall scarcely be able to chew so much as a piece of soft cheese for a month after it.” The Englishman seated himself upon his stool, and set her upon his knees. “Begin upon the right, my pretty she, slowly, purposefully, and with valiancy. I would as lief have your lips as a bombard of sherris. If it were not for one Betty Tucker, a dainty piece at the ‘Knight in Armour’ public-house hard by to the town of Barnet, in the kingdom of Great Britain, I would bear you at my saddle-bow all the way back to our little England, and marry you at the church of Saint Clement the Dane, which is in London city. For next to sack I love valour, and next to valour I love my soul. Now then, thou nice miniard, I must taste thy lips softly, courteously, but yet with valiancy as becomes thy disposition.”