to honour you, - you - you - you lickspittle Englishman? I am full
of patience now. I have waited so long." Then he was off at score
about his Jonah in Bury Refectory, and what I'd said of it, and his
pictures in the chapel which all men praised and none looked at
twice (as if that was my fault!), and a whole parcel of words and
looks treasured up against me through years.

'"Ease off your arm a little," I said. "I cannot die by choking,
for I am just dubbed knight, Benedetto."

'"Tell me, and I'll confess ye, Sir Harry Dawe, Knight.
There's a long night before ye. Tell," says he.

'So I told him - his chin on my crown - told him all; told it as
well and with as many words as I have ever told a tale at a supper
with Torrigiano. I knew Benedetto would understand, for, mad
or sad, he was a craftsman. I believed it to be the last tale I'd ever
tell top of mortal earth, and I would not put out bad work before I
left the Lodge. All art's one art, as I said. I bore Benedetto no
malice. My spirits, d'ye see, were catched up in a high, solemn
exaltation, and I saw all earth's vanities foreshortened and little,
laid out below me like a town from a cathedral scaffolding. I told
him what befell, and what I thought of it. I gave him the King's
very voice at "Master Dawe, you've saved me thirty pounds!";
his peevish grunt while he looked for the sword; and how the
badger-eyed figures of Glory and Victory leered at me from the
Flemish hangings. Body o' me, 'twas a fine, noble tale, and, as I
thought, my last work on earth.

'"That is how I was honoured by the King," I said. "They'll