When the Server advanced with his white wand, heading the procession of yeomen-servers with the gilt dishes of the second course—he was a fat pottle-bellied man—the Queen turned to the Duke of Norfolk.
"Dame!" she said in French, "here is a prancing pie! Ma mye! A capon of high grease! Methinks this gentleman hath a very single eye for the larder!"
"Yes, m'am," the Duke answered, "and so would make a better feast for Polypheme than e'er the lean Odysseus."
They went on with their play of words upon the names of the dishes in the menu....
"But say rather a porpoise in armour."
"Halibut engrailed, Madam, hath a face of peculiar whiteness like the under belly of that fish!"
"A Florentine of puff paste, m'am."
"Habet!" the Queen replied, "I can't better that. Could you, Lady Paget? You are a great jester."
Lady Paget, a stately white-haired dame, bowed to the Duke and then to the Queen.