<p><SPAN name="c4" id="c4"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER IV </h2>
<p><br/></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="04-053.jpg (144K)" src="images/04-053.jpg" width-obs="100%" /></div>
<p><br/></p>
<p>SIR DINADAN THE HUMORIST</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Sir Dinadan the Humorist was the first to awake, and he soon roused the
rest with a practical joke of a sufficiently poor quality. He tied some
metal mugs to a dog's tail and turned him loose, and he tore around and
around the place in a frenzy of fright, with all the other dogs bellowing
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, 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 else had got through.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="04-054.jpg (156K)" src="images/04-054.jpg" width-obs="100%" /></div>
<p><br/></p>
<p>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 when I was a boy
thirteen hundred years afterwards. It about convinced me that there
isn't any such thing as a new joke possible. Everybody laughed at
these antiquities—but then they always do; I had noticed that,
centuries later. However, of course the scoffer didn't laugh—I mean
the boy. No, he scoffed; there wasn't anything he wouldn't scoff at.
He said the most of Sir Dinadan's jokes were rotten and the rest were
petrified. I said "petrified" was good; as I believed, myself, that
the only right way to classify the majestic ages of some of those jokes
was by geologic periods. But that neat idea hit the boy in a blank
place, for geology hadn't been invented yet. 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.</p>
<p>Now Sir Kay arose and began to fire up on his history-mill with me for
fuel. 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. 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
tusked and taloned man-devouring ogre", and everybody took in all this
bosh in the naivest way, and never smiled or seemed to notice that there
was any discrepancy between these watered statistics 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 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; and was so little concerned about it that he
stopped to yawn before he named the date.</p>
<p>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 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. And yet it was nothing but an
ordinary suit of fifteen-dollar slop-shops. Still, I was sane enough to
notice this detail, to wit: many of the terms used in the most
matter-of-fact way by this great assemblage of the first ladies and
gentlemen in the land would have made a Comanche blush.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="04-056.jpg (162K)" src="images/04-056.jpg" width-obs="100%" /></div>
<p><br/></p>
<p>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 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 real lady and real gentleman discoverable in
English history—or in European history, for that matter—may be
said to have made their appearance. Suppose Sir Walter, instead of
putting the conversations into the mouths of his characters, had allowed
the characters to speak for themselves? We should have had talk from
Rebecca and Ivanhoe and the soft lady Rowena which would embarrass a tramp
in our day. 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.</p>
<p>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 hint. He asked them why they were so dull—why
didn't it occur to them to strip me. 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.</p>
<p>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 moldy straw for a bed, and no end of
rats for company.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="05-059.jpg (123K)" src="images/05-059.jpg" width-obs="100%" /></div>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />
1 of 2
2 of 2
Previous
Next
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.