"Of course, Sir Henry."
"'Charles the First" — we you gettin’ this, hey? — 'Charles the first is said to have remarked of him: "No man of fairer manners was ever about us." His tragic marriage to Lucy Baimbridge, and the duel that followed, are well known. In the middle years of his life there is a long gap, which Anthony à Wood was evidently unable to trace."
"A gap in his life?" exclaimed Aunt Cicely. "What tragic fate was it?"
"Well," said H.M., "they stuck him in the coop."
"I… I beg your pardon?"
"Into the foul, heyhouse' jail of Newgate they stuck him," roared H.M., beginning to fire up. "Three times they did. It was a put-up job, of course. The Cecils did it"
"You mean they persecuted him?"
"Oh, my wench!" said H.M., momentarily forgetting the heroic atmosphere and shaking his head dismally. "It was the scummiest piece of work in history, and I'm goin' to write a monograph to prove it
"Looky here!" he went on with inspiration. "You just imagine him (or, as it might be, me) standing up at the Old Bailey to face his accusers the first time. You imagine him (or, as it might be, me) in a big lace collar, with his Cavalier hair down to his shoulders, lookin' up at the bench like this."
Here H.M, with his arms hooked out at his sides, squared off and directed a glare of martyrdom about half way up the opposite wait.