It seemed to me that this quaint lie was most simply and beautifully told; but then I had heard it only once, and that makes a difference; it was pleasant to the others when it was fresh, no doubt.
Sir Dinadan the HumoristⒺexplanatory note was the first to awake, and he soon roused the restⒶalteration in the MS with a practical joke of a sufficientlyⒶemendation poor quality. He tied some metal mugs to a dog’s tail and turned him loose, and he tore roundⒶrejected substantive Ⓐtextual note and around the place in a frenzy of fright, with all the other dogs bellowingⒶalteration in the MS after him and battering and crashing against everything that came in their way and making altogether a chaos of confusion and a most deafening din and turmoil; at which every man and woman of the multitude laughed till the tears flowed, and some fell out of their chairs and wallowed on the floor in ecstasy. It was just like so many children. Sir Dinadan was so proud of his exploit that he could not keep from telling over and over again, [begin page 77] to weariness, how the immortal idea happened to occur to him; and, as is the way with humorists of his breed, he was still laughing at it after everybodyⒶemendation else had got through. He was so set up that he concluded to make a speech—of course a humorous speech. I think I never heard so many old played-out jokes strung together in my life. He was worse than the minstrels, worse than the clown in the circus. It seemed peculiarly sad to sit here, thirteen hundred years before I was born and listen again to poor, flat, worm-eaten jokes that had given me the dry gripesⒶalteration in the MS when I was a boy thirteen hundred years afterwards. It about convinced me that there isn’tⒶemendation any such thing as a new joke possible. Everybody laughed at these antiquities—but thenⒶalteration in the MS they always do; I had noticed that, centuries later. However, of course the ScofferⒶalteration in the MS didn’t laugh—I mean the boyⒶalteration in the MS. No, he scoffed; there wasn’t anythingⒶemendation he wouldn’t scoff at. He said the most of Sir Dinadan’s jokes were rotten and the rest were petrified.Ⓐalteration in the MS I said “petrified” was good; as I believed, myself, that the only right way to classify the majesticⒶalteration in the MS ages of some of those jokes was by geologic periods. ButⒶalteration in the MS that neatⒶalteration in the MS idea hit the boy in a blank place, for geology hadn’t been invented yet. He failed to catch on.Ⓐrejected substantive Ⓐtextual note Ⓐalteration in the MS However, I made a note of the remark, and calculated to educate the commonwealth up to it if I pulled through. It is no use to throw a good thing away merely because the market isn’t ripe yet.
Now Sir Kay arose and began to fire up on his history-mill, with me for fuel.Ⓐalteration in the MS It was time for me to feel serious, and I did. Sir Kay told how he had encountered me in a far land of barbarians who all wore the same ridiculous garb that I did—a garb that was a work of enchantment and intended to make the wearer secure from hurt by human hands.Ⓐalteration in the MS However, he had nullified the force of the enchantment by prayer, and had killed my thirteen knights in a three-hours’ battle and taken me prisoner, sparing my life in order that so strange a curiosity as I was might be exhibited to the wonder and admiration of the king and the court. He spoke of me all the time, in the blandest way, as “this prodigious giant,” and “this horrible sky-towering monster,” and “this tushedⒶrejected substantive and taloned man-devouringⒶalteration in the MS ogre;” and everybody took in all this boshⒶalteration in the MS in the naivestⒶemendation way, and never smiled or seemed to notice that there was any discrepancyⒶalteration in the MS between these watered statisticsⒶalteration in the MS and me. He said that in trying to escape from him I sprang into the top of a tree two hundred cubits high at a single bound, but he dislodged me with a [begin page 78] stone the size of a cow, which “all-to brast” the most of my bones, and then swore me to appear at Arthur’s court for sentence. He ended by condemning me to die at noon on the 21st;Ⓐalteration in the MS and was so little concerned about it that he stopped to yawn before he named the date.
I was in a dismal state by this time; indeed, I was hardly enough in my right mind to keep the run of a dispute that sprungⒶrejected substantive up as to how I had better be killed, the possibility of the killing being doubted by some, because of the enchantment in my clothes.Ⓐtextual note And yet it was nothing but an ordinary suit of fifteen-dollar slop-shops.Ⓐemendation Still, I was saneⒶemendation Ⓐtextual note enough to notice this detail, to witⒶemendation Ⓐalteration in the MS: many of the terms used in the most matter-of-fact way by this great assemblage of the firstⒶemendation ladies and gentlemen in the land would have made a ComancheⒶalteration in the MS blush. Indelicacy is too mild a term to convey the idea. However, I had read “Tom Jones,” and “Roderick Random,” and other books of that kind, and knew that the highest and firstⒶalteration in the MS ladies and gentlemen in England had remained little or no cleaner in their talk, and in the morals and conduct which such talk implies, clear up to a hundred years ago; in fact, clear into our own nineteenth century—in which century, broadly speaking, the earliest samples of theⒶalteration in the MS real lady and real gentleman discoverableⒶalteration in the MS in English history—or inⒶalteration in the MS [begin page 79]
They were so troubled about my enchanted clothes that they were mightily relieved, at last, when old Merlin swept the difficulty away for them with a common-senseⒶalteration in the MS hint. He asked them why they were so dull—why didn’tⒶemendation it occur to them to strip me.Ⓐalteration in the MS In half a minute I was as naked as a pair of tongs! And dear, dear, to think of it: I was the only embarrassed person there. Everybody discussed me; and did it as unconcernedly as if I had been a cabbage. Queen Guenever was as naively interested as the rest, and said she had never seen anybody with legs just like mine before. It was the only compliment I got—if it was a compliment.
Finally, I was carried off in one direction, and my perilous clothes in another. I was shoved into a dark and narrow cell in a dungeon, with some scant remnants for dinner, some mouldy straw for a bed, and no end of rats for company.