ncorrigible fumbler after petticoats. And now, he
said, this old fox was to be bagged and tied up.

He said--

'Well, well, well; well, well!'

For, if a Queen commanded a marriage, a marriage there must be; there
was no more hope for the Magister than for any slave of Cato's. He was
cabined, ginned, trapped, shut in from the herd of bachelors. It pleased
the King very well.

The King grasped the gilded arms of his great chair, Katharine sat
beside him, her hands laid one within another upon her lap. She did not
say one single word during the King's interview with Magister Udal.

The Magister fell upon his knees before them and, seeing the laughing
wrinkles round the King's little eyes, made sure that he was sent
for--as had often been the case--to turn into Latin some jest the King
had made. His gown fell about his kneeling shins, his cap was at his
side, his lean, brown, and sly face, with the long nose and crafty eyes,
was like a woodpecker's.

'Goodman Magister,' Henry said. 'Stand up. We have sent for thee to
advance thee.' Without moving his head he rolled his eyes to one side.
He loved his dramatic effects and wished to await the coming of the
Queen's maid, Margot, before he gave the weight of his message.

Udal picked up his cap and came up to his feet before them; he had
beneath his gown a little book, and one long finger between its leaves
to keep his place where he had been reading. For he had forgotten a
saying of Thales, and was reading through Caesar's Commentaries to find
it.

'As Seneca said,' he uttered in his throat, 'advancement is doubly sweet
to them that deserve it not.'

'Why,' the King said, 'we advance thee on the deserts of one that finds
thee sweet, and is sweet to one doubly sweet to us, Henry of Windsor
that speak sweet words to thee.'

The lines on Udal's face drooped all a little downwards.

'Y'are reader in Latin to the Lady Mary,' the King said.

'I have little deserved in that office,' Udal answered; 'the lady reads
Latin better than even I.'

'Why, you lie in that,' Henry said, ''a readeth well for she's my
daughter; but not so well as thee.'

Udal ducked his head; he was not minded to carry modesty further than in
reason.

'The Lady Mary--the Lady Mary of England----' the King said
weightily--and these last two words of his had a weight all their own,
so that he added, 'of England' again, and then, 'will have little longer
need of thee. She shall wed with a puissan