“She had; but what of that?” queried Raleigh.

“Do you mean to say that she lived and died an old maid from choice?” demanded Confucius.

“Certainly I do,” said Raleigh.  “And why should I not tell you that?”

“For a very good and sufficient reason,” retorted Confucius, “which is, in brief, that I am not a marine.  I may dislike women, my dear Raleigh, but I know them better than you do, gallant as you are; and when you tell me in one and the same moment that a woman holding absolute sway over men yet lived and died an old maid, you must not be indignant if I smile and bite the end of my thumb, which is the Chinese way of saying that’s all in your eye, Betty Martin.”

“Believe it or not, you poor old back number,” retorted Raleigh, hotly.  “It alters nothing.  Queen Elizabeth could have married a hundred times over if she had wished.  I know I lost my head there completely.”

“That shows, Sir Walter,” said Dryden, with a grin, “how wrong you are.  You lost your head to King James.  Hi!  Shakespeare, here’s a man doesn’t know who chopped his head off.”

Raleigh’s face flushed scarlet. “’Tis better to have had a head and lost it,” he cried, “than never to have had a head at all!  Mark you, Dryden, my boy, it ill befits you to scoff at me for my misfortune, for dust thou art, and to dust thou hast returned, if word from t’other side about thy books and that which in and on them lies be true.”

“Whate’er be said about my books,” said Dryden, angrily, “be they read or be they not, ’tis mine they are, and none there be who dare dispute their authorship.”

“Thus proving that men, thank Heaven, are still sane,” ejaculated Doctor Johnson.  “To assume the authorship of Dryden would be not so much a claim, my friend, as a confession.”

“Shades of the mighty Chow!” cried Confucius.  “An’ will ye hear the poets squabble!  Egad!  A ladies’ day could hardly introduce into our midst a more diverting disputation.”

“We’re all getting a little high-flown in our phraseology,” put in Shakespeare at this point.  “Let’s quit talking in blank-verse and come down to business. I think a ladies’ day would be great sport.  I’ll write a poem to read on the occasion.”

“Then I oppose it with all my heart,” said Doctor Johnson.  “Why do you always want to make our entertainments commonplace?  Leave occasional poems to mortals.  I never knew an occasional poem yet that was worthy of an immortal.”

“That’s precisely why I want to write one occasional poem.  I’d make it worthy,” Shakespeare answered.  “Like this, for instance: 

   Most fair, most sweet, most beauteous of ladies,
   The greatest charm in all ye realm of Hades.

Why, my dear Doctor, such an opportunity for rhyming Hades with ladies should not be lost.”

“That just proves what I said,” said Johnson.  “Any idiot can make ladies rhyme with Hades.  It requires absolute genius to avoid the temptation.  You are great enough to make Hades rhyme with bicycle if you choose to do it—­but no, you succumb to the temptation to be commonplace.  Bah!  One of these modern drawing-room poets with three sections to his name couldn’t do worse.”