'en get back to my nap in the hazle copse again."

"Nay, good Puck, I meant thee no harm, as thou knowest well enough.
Since thou knowest my innermost grief, let me hear thy fool's advice
in the matter."

"If I gave thee advice, I were in truth a fool. But I'll very
willingly forgive thee this time, and tell thee what I overheard
to-night at the palace."

"Ah, that's a good Puck!"

"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 o