ling he is in search of service
from the kings of the earth. His wages are in no
way out of measure.

_King_: Is he a good hand at his trade?

_Queen_: Honest he is, I believe, and ready to
give a hand here and there.

_King_: What way does he handle flesh, I'd wish
to know? And all that comes up from the tide?
Bream, now; that is a fish is very pleasant to me--stewed
or fried with butter till the bones of it melt
in your mouth. There is nothing in sea or strand
but is the better of a quality cook--only oysters,
that are best left alone, being as they are all gravy
and fat.

_Queen_: I didn't question him yet about cookery.

_King_: It's seldom I met a woman with right
respect for food, but for show and silly dishes and
trash that would leave you in the finish as dwindled
as a badger on St. Bridget's day.

_Queen_: If this youth of a young man was able to
give satisfaction at the King of Sorcha's Court,
I am sure that he will make a dinner to please
yourself.

_Manus_: I will do more than that. I will dress
a dinner that will please _my_self.

_Princess: (Clapping hands.)_ Very well said!

_King_: Sound out now some good dishes such
as you used to be giving in Sorcha, and the Queen
will put them down in a line of writing, that I can
be thinking about them till such time as you will
have them readied.

_Queen_: There are sheeps' trotters below; you
might know some tasty way to dress them.

_Manus_: I do surely. I'll put the trotters within
a fowl, and the fowl within a goose, and the goose in
a suckling pig, and the suckling pig in a fat lamb,
and the lamb in a calf, and the calf in a Maderalla ...

_King_: What now is a Maderalla?

_Manus_: He is a beast that saves the cook trouble,
swallowing all those meats one after another--in
Sorcha.

_King_: That should be a very pretty dish. Let
you go make a start with it the way we will not be
famished before nightfall. Bring him, Dall Glic,
to the larder.

_Dall Glic_: I'm in dread it's as good for him to
stop where he is.

_King_: What are you saying?

_Dall Glic_: Those lads of apprentices that left
nothing in it only bare hooks.

_Nurse_: It is the Queen would give no leave
for more provision to come in, saying there was
no one to prepare it.

_Manus_: If that is so, I will be forced to lay
my orders on the Hawk of the Grey Rock and the
Brown Otter of the Stream to bring in meat at
my bidding.

_King_: Hurry on so.

_Queen_: I mysel