"Nothing could be easier, in a blank verse composition," assented Brother Copas gravely.
"You see, there is very little writing required. Just enough dialogue to keep the thing going.… Her ladyship is providing her own riding-habit and those of her attendant ladies, for whom she has chosen six of the most beautiful maidens in the neighbourhood, quite irrespective of class. The dresses are to be gorgeous."
"They will form a pleasing contrast, then, to King Stephen, whose riding-breeches, as we know, 'cost him but a crown.'… Very well, I will 'cut the cackle and come to the hosses.' And you, Mr. Isidore? Do I read in your eye that you desire a similar literary restraint in your Episode of King Hal?"
"Ach, yes," grinned Mr. Isidore. "Cut ze caggle—cabital! I soggest in zat Ebisode we haf a Ballet."
"A Ballet?"
"A Ballet of Imberial Exbansion—ze first English discofferies ofer sea—ze natives brought back in brocession to mek sobmission—"
"Devilish pretty substitute for Thomas Cromwell and the Reformation!"
"It was zere lay ze future of Englandt, hein?"
"I see," said Brother Copas thoughtfully; "provided you make the ballets of our nation, you don't care if your brother makes its laws."
These preparations (he noted) had a small byproduct pleasantly affecting St. Hospital. Mr. Colt, in his anxiety to enlist the whole-hearted services of the Brethren (who according to design were to serve as a sort of subsidiary chorus to the Pageant, appearing and reappearing, still in their antique garb, in a succession of scenes supposed to extend over many centuries), had suddenly taken the line of being 'all things to all men,' and sensibly relaxed the zeal of his proselytising as well as the rigour of certain regulations offensive to the more Protestant of his flock.