Clearly she took them for their own fathers.
Meanwhile, Master Ambrose was drawing in his breath, with a noise as if he were eating soup, and creasing his double chins—sure signs, to anyone who had seen him on the Bench, that he was getting ready to hector.
But Master Nathaniel gave him a little warning nudge, and said cordially to their hostess, "Why, our stockings, and boots too, are doing very nicely, thank you. So you didn't expect us to know the pass-word, eh? Well, well, perhaps we know more than you think," then, under his breath to Master Ambrose, "By my Great-aunt's Rump, Ambrose, what was the pass-word?"
Then turning again to Mother Tibbs, who was slightly swaying from her hips, as if in time to some jig, which she alone could hear, he said, "You've got some fine tapestry. I don't believe I've ever seen finer!"
She smiled, and then coming close up to him, said in a low voice, "Does your Worship know what makes it so fine? No? Why, it's the fairy fruit!" and she nodded her head mysteriously, several times.
Master Ambrose gave a sort of low growl of rage, but again Master Nathaniel shot him a warning look, and said in a voice of polite interest, "Indeed! Indeed! And where, may I ask, does the ... er ... fruit come from?"
She laughed merrily, "Why, the gentlemen bring it! All the pretty gentlemen, dressed in green, with their knots of ribands, crowding down in the sunrise from their ships with the scarlet sails to suck the golden apricocks, when all in Lud are fast asleep! And then the cock says Cockadoodledoo! Cockadoodledooooo!" and her voice trailed off, far-away and lonely, suggesting, somehow, the first glimmer of dawn on ghostly hayricks.
"And I'll tell you something, Master Nat Cock o' the Roost," she went on, smiling mysteriously, and coming close up to him, "you'll soon be dead!"
Then she stepped back, smiling and nodding encouragingly, as if to say, "There's a pretty present I've given you! Take care of it."
"And as for Mother Tibbs," she went on triumphantly, "she'll soon be a fine lady, like the wives of the Senators, dancing all night under the moon! The gentlemen have promised."