Queen: Honest he is, I believe, and ready to
give a hand here and there.
King: What way does he handle flesh, I'd wish
to know? And all that comes up from the tide?
Bream, now; that is a fish is very pleasant to me—
stewed or fried with butter till the bones of it melt
in your mouth. There is nothing in sea or strand
but is the better of a quality cook—only oysters,
that are best left alone, being as they are all gravy
and fat.
Queen: I didn't question him yet about cookery.
King: It's seldom I met a woman with right
respect for food, but for show and silly dishes and
trash that would leave you in the finish as dwindled
as a badger on St. Bridget's day.
Queen: If this youth of a young man was able to
give satisfaction at the King of Sorcha's Court,
I am sure that he will make a dinner to please
yourself.
Manus: I will do more than that. I will dress
a dinner that will please myself.
Princess: (Clapping hands.) Very well said!
King: Sound out now some good dishes such
as you used to be giving in Sorcha, and the Queen
will put them down in a line of writing, that I can
be thinking about them till such time as you will
have them readied.
Queen: There are sheeps' trotters below; you
might know some tasty way to dress them.
Manus: I do surely. I'll put the trotters within
a fowl, and the fowl within a goose, and the goose in
a suckling pig, and the suckling pig in a fat lamb,
and the lamb in a calf, and the calf in a Maderalla ...