verse—    GILL: Of verse I feel a little tired—    MYSELF: Why, if you think a change desired, A change we'll have, for, truth to tell, This rhyming bothers me as well. So here awhile we'll sink to prose. Now, are you ready? Then here goes! 

       “Par Dex, my lord!” growled Sir Pertinax. “A malison on't, says I, saving thy lordly grace, yet a rogue is a rogue and, being rogue, should die right roguishly as is the custom and the law. For if, messire, if—per De and by Our Sweet Lady of Shene Chapel within the Wood, if, I say, in thy new and sudden-put-on attitude o' folly, thou wilt save alive all rogues soever, then by Saint Cuthbert his curse, by sweet Saint Benedict his blessed bones, by—”      

       “Hold now, Pertinax,” said the Duke, slipping his lute into leathern bag and slinging it behind wide shoulders, “list ye, Sir Knight of Shene, and mark this, to wit: If a rogue in roguery die then rogue is he forsooth; but, mark this again, if a rogue be spared his life he may perchance and peradventure forswear, that is, eschew or, vulgarly speaking, turn from his roguish ways, and die as honest as I, aye, or even—thou!”      

       Here Sir Pertinax snorted as they strode on together, yet in a little they turned aside from the hot and dusty road and journeyed on beneath the trees that grew thereby.     

       “By all the fiends, my lord, and speaking vulgarly in turn, this belly o'       mine lacketh, these my bowels do yearn consumedly unto messes savoury and cates succulent—”      

       Whereat the Duke, smiling merry-eyed, chanted roguishly:     

   “A haunch o' venison juicy from the spit now?”    “Aha!” groaned the Knight, “Lord, let us haste—”    “A larded capon to thee might seem fit now?”    “Saints!” sighed the Knight, “but for one little taste.”    “Or, Pertinax, a pasty plump and deep—”    “Ha—pasty, by the Mass!” the Knight did cry.   “Or pickled tongue of neat, Sir Knight, or sheep—”    “Oh, for a horse! For wings wherewith to fly—”    “Or breast of swan—”  

       “Stay! nay, my lord, ha' mercy!” groaned Sir Pertinax, wiping moist brow.       “Picture no more toothsome dainties to my soul lest for desire I swoon and languish by the way. I pray thee, let us haste, sire, so may we reach fair Canalise ere sunset—yet stay! Hearken, messire, hear ye aught? Sure, afar the tocsin soundeth?”      

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