'Then tell in private words back again this: That if the French King or the Emperor do war upon us now Privy Seal will sit upon the King's back for ever.'
'Ah, I know who hath talked with you,' she answered. 'Uncle, give me your hand to kiss, for I must back to my mistress.'
He put his thin hand grimly behind his back.
'Ye spy, then, for others,' he said. 'Go kiss their feet.'
She laughed in a nettled voice:
'If the others get no more from me than your Grace of Norfolk....'
He frowned ominously, pivoted stiffly round on his heels, and said over his shoulder:
'Then I will have thy cousin clapped up the first time he is found in a drunken brawl at Calais.'
She was after him beseechingly, with her hands held out:
'Oh no, uncle,' and 'Oh, dear uncle. Let poor fool Tom be drunken when drunken brawls work no manner of ill.'