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Apparatus Notes
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CHAPTER 4  Sir Dinadan the Humorist
[begin page 76]
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CHAPTER 4emendationtextual note
 Sir Dinadan the Humorist

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 Humoristexplanatory note was the first to awake, and he soon roused the restalteration in the MS with a practical joke of a sufficientlyemendation poor quality. He tied some metal mugs to a dog’s tail and turned him loose, and he tore roundrejected substantive textual note and around the place in a frenzy of fright, with all the other dogs bellowingalteration 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 everybodyemendation 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 gripesalteration in the MS when I was a boy thirteen hundred years afterwards. It about convinced me that there isn’temendation any such thing as a new joke possible. Everybody laughed at these antiquities—but thenalteration in the MS they always do; I had noticed that, centuries later. However, of course the Scofferalteration in the MS didn’t laugh—I mean the boyalteration in the MS. No, he scoffed; there wasn’t anythingemendation 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 majesticalteration in the MS ages of some of those jokes was by geologic periods. Butalteration in the MS that neatalteration 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 tushedrejected substantive and taloned man-devouringalteration in the MS ogre;” and everybody took in all this boshalteration in the MS in the naivestemendation way, and never smiled or seemed to notice that there was any discrepancyalteration in the MS between these watered statisticsalteration 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.

the practical joker’s joke.

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 sprungrejected 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 saneemendation textual note enough to notice this detail, to witemendation alteration in the MS: many of the terms used in the most matter-of-fact way by this great assemblage of the firstemendation ladies and gentlemen in the land would have made a Comanchealteration 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 firstalteration 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 thealteration in the MS real lady and real gentleman discoverablealteration in the MS in English history—or inalteration in the MS [begin page 79]

“queen guenever was as naively interested as the rest.”
European history, for that matter—may be said to have made their appearance.alteration in the MS Suppose Sir Walter, instead of putting the conversations into the mouths of his characters, had allowed the charactersalteration in the MS to speak for themselves? We should have had talk from Rebeccaemendation textual note and Ivanhoe [begin page 80] and the soft Lady Rowena which would embarrass a tramp in our dayemendation.alteration in the MS However, to the unconsciously indelicate, all things are delicate. King Arthur’s people were not aware that they were indecent, and I had presence of mind enough not to mention it.

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-sensealteration in the MS hint. He asked them why they were so dull—why didn’temendation 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.

Editorial Emendations CHAPTER 4  Sir Dinadan the Humorist
  CHAPTER 4 (I-C)  ●  Chap. 5. (MS)  A reads “CHAPTER IV.”
  sufficiently (A)  ●  rather (MS) 
  everybody (I-C)  ●  every-  |  body (MS) 
  isn’t (A)  ●  ain’t (MS) 
  wasn’t anything (A)  ●  was nothing (MS) 
  naivest (I-C)  ●  blandest (MS)  A reads “naïvest”
  And . . . slop-shops. (A)  ●  not in  (MS) 
  sane (A)  ●  at myself (MS) 
  to wit (I-C)  ●  to-wit (MS) 
  first (A)  ●  finest (MS) 
  Rebecca (I-C)  ●  Rachel (MS) 
  embarrass . . . day (A)  ●  soil the outcasts of a modern city prison—that is, if any imaginable language could soil them (MS) 
  didn’t it (A)  ●  it didn’t (MS) 
Rejected Substantives CHAPTER 4  Sir Dinadan the Humorist
  round (MS)  ●  around (A,E) 
  He . . . on. (MS)  ●  not in  (A,E) 
  tushed (MS)  ●  tusked (A,E) 
  sprung (MS,A)  ●  sprang (E) 
Alterations in the Manuscript CHAPTER 4  Sir Dinadan the Humorist
 rest] followed by a canceled comma and ‘by’ written and canceled twice.
 bellowing] follows canceled ‘after’.
 dry gripes] follows canceled ‘fan-tods’.
 then] interlined above canceled ‘lord,’.
 Scoffer] originally ‘scoffer’; the ‘s’ underlined three times.
 the boy] ‘the’ interlined above canceled ‘that’.
 petrified.] followed by canceled ‘And he was bitter on the people, too, for laughing.’
 majestic] interlined.
 But] follows canceled ‘However’.
 neat] follows canceled ‘rather’.
 He . . . on.] interlined.
 began . . . fuel.] interlined above canceled ‘went for me’.
 hands.] followed by an unrecovered word interlined without a caret, then canceled.
 man-devouring] ‘devouring’ interlined above canceled ‘eating’.
 bosh] interlined above canceled ‘rot’.
 discrepancy] follows canceled ‘discernible’.
 watered statistics] interlined, probably as an alternative reading, above ‘descriptions’; ‘descriptions’ canceled in pencil.
 noon on the 21st;] interlined above canceled ‘four in the afternoon of the 19th;’.
 detail, to wit] the MS reads ‘detail, to-wit’ which is interlined; emended.
 Comanche] interlined above canceled ‘horse’.
 highest and first] the MS reads ‘highest and finest’ which is interlined above canceled ‘first’; emended.
 century, . . . of the] originally ‘cen-  |  tury’; ‘tury, . . . of the’ interlined above canceled ‘tury, with hardly a doubt, the first’.
 discoverable] interlined following canceled ‘to be found’.
 or in] ‘in’ interlined.
 may . . . appearance.] interlined above canceled ‘were born.’
 the characters] originally ‘them’; ‘m’ canceled and ‘characters’ interlined.
 embarrass . . . day.] the MS reads ‘soil the outcasts of a modern city prison—that is, if any imaginable language could soil them.’; ‘—that . . . them.’ interlined; ‘them.’ interlined above canceled ‘said outcasts’; emended.
 common-sense] interlined above canceled ‘luminous’.
 me.] followed by ‘They did it in a instant’ interlined in pencil then canceled.
Textual Notes CHAPTER 4  Sir Dinadan the Humorist
 CHAPTER 4] At the top of the manuscript page beginning here, Mark Twain wrote and canceled in pencil three notes: “55 M last night.”; “50 m to here”; and “That is, 8.20. p.m.” The order in which the notes were written is not clear. Similar notes appear at the beginnings of chapters 3, 5, and 6.
 round] On the whole it seems more likely that a compositor or press reader would smooth the manuscript’s “round and around” to “around and around” than that the author would make the change.
 He . . . on.] This sentence has been restored from the manuscript, where it is interlined at the end of a page in such a way that the typist could easily have overlooked it while going on to the next page.
 clothes.] Followed in the manuscript by a penciled X and a note later obliterated. The first word of the note is the hardest to read, but may be “type” or “begin”; the note continues “from here to next X.” (The last three words are relatively clear.) A similar wiped-out X appears two manuscript pages later at 80.4 (“mention it.”).
 sane] The change of idiom was occasioned by Stedman’s query of the manuscript’s “at myself” (see Appendix D).
 Rebecca] Mark Twain wrote “Rachel” in the manuscript, and his error went unnoticed through six editions until 1900 when “FM,” the fastidious publisher’s reader who corrected the American Publishing Company’s “Royal Edition” before new impressions were printed from its plates, made the change, writing next to it in the margin of his copy “This is awful—there is no Rachel in Ivanhoe.” Frank Bliss, president of the publishing house, approved the correction, noting next to it “Clemens said to change this FEB” (Yale).
Explanatory Notes CHAPTER 4  Sir Dinadan the Humorist
 Dinadan the Humorist] Malory emphasizes Sir Dinadan’s sense of humor several times, calling him “a scoffer, and a jester, and the merriest knight among fellowship that was that time living,” for instance (Morte Darthur, Book 10, chapter 47).