“Jack! Soothly, I thought it must be thou. What moveth thy laughter?”
“Dame Cicely de Chaucombe,” saith he, essaying to look sober—which he managed but ill. “The Annals of Cicely, likewise; and the imaginings of Cicely in especial.”
“Well, what now mispayeth (displeases) thee?” quoth I.
“There was once man,” saith Jack, “thought as thou dost. And seeing that the hollyhocks in his garden were taller than the daisies, he bade his gardener with a scythe cut short the hollyhocks, that all the flowers should be but of one height.”
“Well, what happed?” said I.
“Why, next day were there no hollyhocks. And then the hollyhock stems and the daisies both laid ’plaint of the gardener.”
“Both?” said I.
“Both. They alway do.”
“But what ’plaint had the daisies to offer?”
“Why, that they had not been pulled up to the height of the hollyhocks, be sure.”