"That depends on circumstances, your valiancy. I am somewhat like a dish of toasted gallinippers--whether it is palatable or not depending very much in the way it is served. But this is what I heard his majesty say to her majesty. 'Sweetbine, my dear,' said he, 'don't you think Dewbell has a fancy for our brave and noble knight, Sir Timothy Lawn?' 'Why, my love,' replied her majesty, 'I have long been almost certain that she loved him. But she is such a confirmed flirt I am afraid she can never be brought to say so. I haven't the least idea that she would not reject Sir Timothy, were he to propose.' 'We must cure her of this fatal pride and folly,' replied his majesty, 'and I think that, with a little of your assistance, I can manage it capitally.' And then the dear old people passed into the royal bed-chamber, in the japonica wing, and I heard no more." "I'll to the king." "And I'll to a better friend than he; if you permit me, your worship, I take my _bough_ and _leave_." "Avaunt, vile punning Puck! Thou hast been to Philadelphia, where all the streets rhyme, and every corner is a pun upon the next. May the fiend unquip thee! Away!' "If thou I kest not jokes, thou hadst best stick to thy bachelor's-buttonhood. I tell thee, marriage is a capital joke." "What knowest thou of marriage?" "I am one of its fruits." "A bitter jest, indeed, and plucked ere half ripened. St. Bulwer! but thou wilt be a mother's blessing when thou art fully grown!" "Better save thy wits, sir knight! Thou wilt have a plentiful lack of them ere the honeymoon be out of the comb. A pleasant roost in thy bachelor's hall, and many of them!" and the vagabond sprung upon the back of a green lizard creeping silently through the grass, and sticking his heels into his astonished charger, dragoon-fashion, disappeared down the bank of the brook. The old king and his good wife, Sweetbine, were very much grieved at the foolish trifling of their daughter, Dewbell--for they were well assured that Dewbell loved the noble knight, Sir Timothy, and that it was only a spirit of mere wantonness that led her to vex and torment him. Long into the night did the royal couple converse, striving to devise some means of bringing their wayward daughter to her senses. They at last hit upon a plan, which they fondly hoped might be the means of securing the happiness of their child, and settling her comfortably in life. The next morning his majesty sent for the dwarf, Puck, to his private cabinet, and received him with an unusually grave and troubled aspect. "Venerable sire," said Puck, making a mock reverence, and scarcely able to suppress a chuckle at the solemn looks of his master, "what facetious dream hath been playing its mad pranks about thy sacred pillow? Never saw I kingly face so mirthfully beprankt." "Come hither, good Puck," said the king, patiently, "and when thou hast made thy breakfast of fun upon thy poor master, listen to him seriously."