o 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 ...

_King_: What now is a Maderalla?

_Manus_: He is a beast that saves the cook trouble,
swallowing all those meats one after another--in
Sorcha.

_King_: That should be a very pretty dish. Let
you go make a start with it the way we will not be
famished before nightfall. Bring him, Dall Glic,
to the larder.

_Dall Glic_: I'm in dread it's as good for him to
stop where he is.

_King_: What are you saying?

_Dall Glic_: Those lads of apprentices that left
nothing in it only bare hooks.

_Nurse_: It is the Queen would give no leave
for more provision to come in, saying there was
no one to prepare it.

_Manus_: If that is so, I will be forced to lay
my orders on the Hawk of the Grey Rock and the
Brown Otter of the Stream to bring in meat at
my bidding.

_King_: Hurry on so.

_Queen_: I myself will go and give you instructions
what way to use the kitchen.

_Manus_: Not at all! What I do I'd as lief do
in your own royal parlour! _(Blows whistle; two dark-skinned
men come in with vessels.)_ Give me here
those pots and pans!

_Queen_: What now is about to take place?

_Dall Glic_: I not to be blind, I would say those
to be very foreign-looking men.

_King_: It would seem as if the world was grown
to be very queer.

_Queen_: So it is, and the mastery being given
to a cook.

_Manus_: So it should be too! It is the King
of Shades and Shadows would have rule over the
world if it wasn't for the cooks!

_King_: There's some sense in that now.

_(Strange men are moving and arranging baskets
and vessels.)_

_