t
may make his Grace laugh, and if so I'll give you a gold piece, who have
had enough of oaths and scoldings, aye," he added, with a sour grin,
"and of blows too. Now follow me into the Presence, and speak only when
you are spoken to, nor dare to answer if he rates you."

They went from the room down a passage and through another door, where
the guards on duty looked suspiciously at Bolle and his sack, but at a
word from Cromwell let them through into a large room in which a
fire burned upon the hearth. At the end of this room stood a huge,
proud-looking man with a flat and cruel face, broad as an ox's skull, as
Thomas Bolle said afterwards, who was dressed in some rich, sombre stuff
and wore a velvet cap upon his head. He held a parchment in his hand,
and before him on the other side of an oak table sat an officer of state
in a black robe, who wrote upon another parchment, whereof there were
many scattered about on the table and the floor.

"Knave," shouted the King, for they guessed that it was he, "you have
cast up these figures wrong. Oh, that it should be my lot to be served
by none but fools!"

"Pardon, your Grace," said the secretary in a trembling voice, "thrice
have I checked them."

"Would you gainsay me, you lying lawyer," bellowed the King again. "I
tell you they must be wrong, since otherwise the sum is short by L1100
of that which I was promised. Where are the L1100? You must have stolen
them, thief."

"I steal, oh, your Grace, I steal!"

"Aye, why not, since your betters do. Only you are clumsy, you lack
skill. Ask my Lord Cromwell there to give you lessons. He learned under
the best of masters, and is a merchant by trade to boot. Oh, get you
gone and take your scribblings with you."

The poor officer hastened to avail himself of this invitation. Hurriedly
collecting his parchments he bowed himself from the presence of his
irate Sovereign. At the door, about twelve feet away, however, he
turned.

"My gracious Liege," he began, "the casting of the count is right. Upon
my honour as a Christian soul I can look your Majesty in the face with
truth in my eye----"

Now on the table there was a massive inkstand made from the horn of a
ram mounted with silver feet. This Henry seized and hurled with all
his strength. The aim was good, for the heavy horn struck the wretched
scribe upon the nose so that the ink squirted all over his face, and
felled him to the floor.

"Now there is more in your eye than