But he came into the apartment singing, and, whatever the scuffling had
meant, found Bardolph in one corner employed in sorting garments from a
clothes-chest, while at the extreme end of the room Mistress Quickly
demurely stirred the fire; which winked at the old knight rather
knowingly.

"_Then came the bold Sir Caradoc_," carolled Sir John. "Ah, mistress,
what news?--_And eke Sir Pellinore_.--Did I rage last night, Bardolph?
Was I a Bedlamite?"

"As mine own bruises can testify," Bardolph assented. "Had each one of
them a tongue, they would raise a clamor beside which Babel were as an
heir weeping for his rich uncle's death; their testimony would qualify
you for any mad-house in England. And if their evidence go against the
doctor's stomach, the watchman at the corner hath three teeth--or,
rather, hath them no longer, since you knocked them out last night--that
will, right willingly, aid him to digest it."

"Three, say you?" asked the knight, rather stiffly lowering his great
body into his great chair set ready for him beside the fire. "I would
have my valor in all men's mouths, but not in this fashion, for it is too
biting a jest. Three, say you? Well, I am glad it was no worse; I have a
tender conscience, and that mad fellow of the north, Hotspur, sits
heavily upon it, so that thus this Percy, being slain by my valor, is
_per se_ avenged, a plague on him! Three, say you? I would to God my name
were not so terrible to the enemy as it is; I would I had 'bated my
natural inclination somewhat, and had slain less tall fellows by some
threescore. I doubt Agamemnon slept not well o' nights. Three, say you?
Give the fellow a crown apiece for his mouldy teeth, if thou hast them;
if thou hast them not, bid him eschew this vice of drunkenness, whereby