“Good lack, Sir! You speak as though I had been an ill husband!” (an extravagant man) cried Jack in an injured tone. “Look you, a gentleman must have his raiment decent—”
“Three cloth suits, six shirts, and six pair of stockings should serve for that, Jack, nor cost above twenty pound the year, and that free reckoned,” (a very handsome allowance) put in Aunt Rachel.
“Six shirts, my dear Aunt!—and six pair of stockings!” laughed Jack. “Why, ’twere not one the day.”
“Two a-week is enow for any man—without he be a chimney-sweep,” said Aunt Rachel oracularly.
This idea evidently amused Jack greatly.
“’Tis in very deed as I said but now: you have no fantasy hereaway of the necessities of a man that is in the Court. He must needs have his broidered shirts, his Italian ruff, well-set, broidered, and starched; his long-breasted French doublet, well bombasted (padded); his hose,—either French, Gally, or Venetian; his corked Flemish shoes of white leather; his paned (slashed and puffed with another colour or material) velvet breeches, guarded with golden lace; his satin cloak, well broidered and laced; his coats of fine cloth, some forty shillings the yard; his long, furred gown of Lukes’ (Lucca) velvet; his muff, Spanish hat, Toledo rapier; his golden and jewelled ear-rings; his stays—”
A few ejaculations, such as “Good lack!” and “Well-a-day!” had been audible from Aunt Rachel as the list proceeded; but Sir Thomas kept silence until the mention of this last article, which was in his eyes a purely feminine item of apparel.
“Nay, Jack, nay, now! Be the men turning women in the Court?”
“And the women turning men, belike,” added Rachel. “The twain do oft-times go together.”
“My good Sir!” returned Jack, with amused condescension. “How shall a gentleman go about a sorry figure, more than a gentlewoman?”