“Write back to the French fellow, thus:-- “‘These balls shall be struck back with such a _racket_ as shall force open Paris gates.’ “The thought is thine, for I give it to thee. Pay me for it by remembrance that I still live and can bear armour, or not, as thou listest. “John Falstaff. “Note.--Observe well the clench upon _racket_***, which meaneth both hurly-burly noise and tennis bat. “At the Garter, Windsor, “30 March, 1415, 3 H. V.” * _Hollinshed. Vide_ also _White Kennet’s History_; and an inedited MS. in the British Museum, first published in Sir H. Nicolas’s _History of the Battle of Agincourt._ ** In the Potter MSS. *** Caxton has recorded this pun. In the course of a few days Sir John learnt that his witticism (unacknowledged) had been made use of as a rejoinder to the insolent message of the dauphin. He accepted this as a recognition of renewed friendly dispositions towards him on the king’s part. He hastily raised such funds as his powers of persuasion could induce his Windsor acquaintances to supply him with, and struck his tent. In defiance of the royal edict he presented himself at the Court of Westminster in the thick of the active preparations for the coming French campaign and solicited a command. II. THE END OF THE LIFE OF SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. “The king has killed his heart, good husband, come home presently.” The speaker was Mrs. Pistol, late Quickly. Her husband was disputing about nothing particular with Corporal Nym. The heart that had been killed by the king (dear Mrs. Quickly! she always spoke truly upon vital questions) was that of Sir John Falstaff. He had presented himself, clad in all the panoply of war, at the palace of Westminster, just as the galleys for the French invasion were getting under weigh. The king had refused him an audience. The Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, acting ostensibly under the directions of the Dowager Queen Regent Joanna, had threatened him with constables. Sir John came home to his old quarters, the Old Boar’s Head in Eastcheap--to die! And Sir John Falstaff died on the 5th of August, 1415, at the Old Boar’s Head Tavern, Eastcheap. His eyes were closed by poor Dame Quickly, and the only mourners round his death bed were the blackguards whom he had fed, and who were humanised and softened by his death. Pistol and Nym forgot their quarrel about nothing, sheathed their unmeaning swords and glared blood-shot condolence one at the other. Bardolph had come up from Windsor, resigning his tapstership to attend on the master whom he had loved and served consistently--long ere he knew how to speak. Our rubicund friend never acquired the art of speech to anything like perfection; but when he learnt that Falstaff was dead he somehow managed to give utterance to a poem. “Would I were with him, wheresom’er he is, either in heaven, or in hell!” I cannot describe Sir John Falstaff’s death half as well as it has been described by Mrs. Quickly. Take her words:--