best cock. To Gammer Gurton he announces that he has seen Dame Chat pick
up the needle and make off with it. Between the two dames ensues a
meeting, the nature of which may be guessed, the whole trouble lying in
the fact that neither thinks it necessary to name the article under
dispute. No wonder that discussion under the disadvantage of so great a
misunderstanding ends in violence. Doctor Rat, the curate, is now called
in; but again Diccon is equal to the occasion. Having warned Dame Chat
that Hodge, to balance the matter of the cock, is about to creep in
through a breach in the wall and kill her chickens, he persuades Doctor
Rat that if he will creep through this same opening he will see the
needle lying on Dame Chat's table. The consequences for the curate are
severe. Master Bailey's assistance is next requisitioned, and him friend
Diccon cannot overreach. The whole truth coming out, Diccon is required
to kneel and apologize. In doing so he gives Hodge a slap which elicits
from that worthy a yell of pain. But it is a wholesome pang, for it
finds the needle no further away than in the seat of Hodge's breeches.

If we compare this play with _Ralph Roister Doister_ three ideas will
occur: first, that we have made no advance; second, that, in giving the
preference to rough country folk, the author has deliberately abandoned
the higher standard of refinement in language and action set in Udall's
major scenes; third, that whereas the earlier work bases its comedy on
character, educing the amusing scenes from the clash of vanity,
constancy and mischief, the later play relies for its comic effects on
situations brought about by mischief alone. These are three rather heavy
counts against the younger rival. But in the other scale may be placed a
very fair claim to greater naturalness. Taking the scenes and characters
in turn, mischief-maker, churchman and all, there is none so open to the
charge of being impossible, and therefore farcical, as the battle
between the forces of Ralph and Dame Custance, or the incredibly