as, indeed, he did the Queen and all near to her. But Buonespoir, the
pirate, was to him reality and the actual, and he called him Bono
Publico. At first Lempriere, ever jealous of his importance, was
inclined to treat him with elephantine condescension; but he could not
long hold out against the boon archness of the jester, and he collapsed
suddenly into as close a friendship as that between himself and
Buonespoir.

A rollicking spirt was his own fullest stock-in-trade, and it won him
like a brother.

So it was that here, in the very bosom of the forest, lured by the pipe
the fool played, Lempriere burst forth into song, in one hand a bottle
of canary, in the other a handful of comfits:

"Duke William was a Norman
(Spread the sail to the breeze!)
That did to England ride;
At Hastings by the Channel
(Drink the wine to the lees!)
Our Harold the Saxon died.
If there be no cakes from Normandy,
There'll be more ale in England!"

"Well sung, nobility, and well said," cried Buonespoir, with a rose by
the stem in his mouth, one hand beating time to the music, the other
clutching a flagon of muscadella; "for the Normans are kings in England,
and there's drink in plenty at the Court of our Lady Duchess."

"Delicio shall never want while I have a penny of hers to spend," quoth