“Lies is a harsh word. Legends, old cock, legends.”
“Oi bain’t a bird,” rasped the Deacon. “Stick to the truth.”
“Lord love us, a Quaker!” Mr. Flippance winked at Will, who smiled—man of the world to man of the world. “As if anybody would take a thing that size and smell for a rooster!”
The Deacon reached for the rum-bottle in deadly silence. Will, with a fear—soon proved superfluous—that he meant it for a missile, hastened to remark that anyhow there were no crowned heads in Australia.
“Where were you educated, sonny?” retorted Mr. Flippance. And he began whistling the then favourite air: “The King of the Cannibal Islands.” He broke off to point out that kings and queens were as thick in the man-eating islands round Australia as old cocks in Essex, though they didn’t wear moleskins, or indeed anything but their own skins. Besides, he added as an afterthought, wasn’t Queen Victoria monarch of Australia too?
Will, taken aback again, had to admit it. “But you haven’t played before Victoria?” he murmured.
Mr. Flippance winked more widely as he explained that a study of the posters would show that the Marionettes themselves never claimed to have performed before crowned heads. It was the plays that had been performed. He turned suddenly upon the rum-soothed Deacon. “You’re not denying, my Quaker friend, that Queen Victoria’s seen Hamlet?”
“You leave me and the Queen out of it,” growled the Deacon.
“Ha! Then you admit she’s seen Hamlet?”
“Oi don’t know nawthen about it. Why should she see Hamlet?”