“Say what thou wilt, honest Tony,” replied Varney; “for be it according to thine absurd faith, or according to thy most villainous practice, it cannot choose but be rare matter to qualify this cup of Alicant.  Thy conversation is relishing and poignant, and beats caviare, dried neat’s-tongue, and all other provocatives that give savour to good liquor.”

“Well, then, tell me,” said Anthony Foster, “is not our good lord and master’s turn better served, and his antechamber more suitably filled, with decent, God-fearing men, who will work his will and their own profit quietly, and without worldly scandal, than that he should be manned, and attended, and followed by such open debauchers and ruffianly swordsmen as Tidesly, Killigrew, this fellow Lambourne, whom you have put me to seek out for you, and other such, who bear the gallows in their face and murder in their right hand—­who are a terror to peaceable men, and a scandal to my lord’s service?”

“Oh, content you, good Master Anthony Foster,” answered Varney; “he that flies at all manner of game must keep all kinds of hawks, both short and long-winged.  The course my lord holds is no easy one, and he must stand provided at all points with trusty retainers to meet each sort of service.  He must have his gay courtier, like myself, to ruffle it in the presence-chamber, and to lay hand on hilt when any speaks in disparagement of my lord’s honour—­”

“Ay,” said Foster, “and to whisper a word for him into a fair lady’s ear, when he may not approach her himself.”

“Then,” said Varney, going on without appearing to notice the interruption, “he must have his lawyers—­deep, subtle pioneers—­to draw his contracts, his pre-contracts, and his post-contracts, and to find the way to make the most of grants of church-lands, and commons, and licenses for monopoly.  And he must have physicians who can spice a cup or a caudle.  And he must have his cabalists, like Dec and Allan, for conjuring up the devil.  And he must have ruffling swordsmen, who would fight the devil when he is raised and at the wildest.  And above all, without prejudice to others, he must have such godly, innocent, puritanic souls as thou, honest Anthony, who defy Satan, and do his work at the same time.”

“You would not say, Master Varney,” said Foster, “that our good lord and master, whom I hold to be fulfilled in all nobleness, would use such base and sinful means to rise, as thy speech points at?”

“Tush, man,” said Varney, “never look at me with so sad a brow.  You trap me not—­nor am I in your power, as your weak brain may imagine, because I name to you freely the engines, the springs, the screws, the tackle, and braces, by which great men rise in stirring times.  Sayest thou our good lord is fulfilled of all nobleness?  Amen, and so be it—­he has the more need to have those about him who are unscrupulous in his service, and who, because they know that his fall will overwhelm and crush them, must wager both blood and brain, soul and body, in order to keep him aloft; and this I tell thee, because I care not who knows it.”