of a good house in
Gloucestershire.'

'More shame that he should soil his hands with trade!' said the Queen.

'See what you say when he has cased those fair hands in Spanish gloves.
You ladies should know better than to fall out with a mercer.'

'Ah!' said Duke Humfrey, 'they never saw the silks and samites wherewith
he fitted out my sister Philippa for the Swedes! Lucky the bride whose
wardrobe is purveyed by honest Dick!'

'Is it not honour enough for the mechanical hinds that we wear their
stuffs,' said Countess Jaqueline, 'without demeaning ourselves to eat at
their boards? The _outrecuidance_ of the rogues in the Netherlands would
be surpassing, did we feed it in that sort.'

''Tis you that will be fed, Dame Jac,' laughed Henry. 'I can tell you,
their sack and their pasties, their march-pane and blanc-manger, far
exceed aught that a poor soldier can set before you.'

'Moreover,' observed Humfrey, 'the ladies ought to see the romaunt of the
Cat complete.'

'How!' cried Jaqueline, 'is it, then, true that this Vittentone is the
miller's son whose cat wore boots and made his fortune?'

'I have heard my aunt of Orleans divert my father with that story,'
murmured Catherine. 'How went the tale? I thought it folly, and marked
it not. What became of the cat?'

'The cat desired to test his master's gratitude, so tells Straparola,'
said the Duke of Orleans, in his dry satirical tone; 'and whereas he had
been wont to promise his benefactor a golden coffin and state funeral,
Puss feigned death, and thereby heard the lady inform her husband that
the old cat was dead. "_A la bonne heure_!" said the Marquis. "Take him
by the tail, and fling him on the muck-heap beneath the window!"'

'Thereof I acquit Whittington, who never was thankless to man or brute,'
said King Henry. 'Moreover, his cat, or her grandchildren, must be now
in high preferment at the King of Barbary's Court.'

'A marvellous beast is that cat,' said James. 'When I was a child in
Scotland, we used to tell the story of her exchange for a freight of gold
and spices, only the ship sailed from Denmark,'

'Maybe,' said Henry; 'but I would maintain the truth of Whittington's cat
with my lance, and would gladly have no worse cause! You'll see his cat
painted beside him in the Guild Hall, and may hear the tale from him, as
I loved to hear him when I was a lad.

"Turn again, Whittington,
Thrice Lord Mayor of London town!"

I told my good old