That worthy’d him, got praises of the King
For him attemptin’ who was self-subdued;
And, in the fleshment of this dread exploit,
Drew me on here.”
“Now then, my impassioned bard, construez! That’s Shakespeare.”
“’Give it up! He’s drunk,” Beetle declared at the end of a blank half minute.
“No, he isn’t,” said Turkey. “He’s a steward—on the estate—chattin’ to his employers.”
“Well—look here, Turkey. You ask King if Shakespeare ever wrote his own plays, an’ he won’t give a dam’ what the steward said.”
“I’ve not come here to play with ushers,” was McTurk’s view of the case.
“I’d do it,” Beetle protested, “only he’d slay me! He don’t love me when I ask about things. I can give you the stuff to draw him—tons of it!” He broke forth into a précis, interspersed with praises, of Nathaniel Holmes and his commentators—especially the latter. He also mentioned Delia, with sorrow that he had not read her. He spoke through nearly the whole of prep; and the upshot of it was that McTurk relented and promised to approach King next “English” on the authenticity of Shakespeare’s plays.