chapter 4 - sir dinadan the humorist
it seemed to me that this 2 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 was the first to awake, and he soon roused the rest with a practical joke of a 3 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 4 of fright, with all the other dogs 5 after him and 6 and crashing against everything that came in their way and making altogether a 7 of confusion and a most 8 1 and 9; 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 10. 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 11 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. 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 12 -- but then they always do; i had noticed that, centuries later. however, of course the 14 didn't laugh -- i mean the boy. no, he 15; there wasn't anything he wouldn't 13 at. he said the most of sir dinadan's jokes were rotten and the rest were 16. i said "petrified" was good; as i believed, myself, that the only right way to classify the 17 ages of some of those jokes was by 18 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 19 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. it was time for me to feel serious, and i did. sir kay told how he had encountered me in a far land of 20, who all wore the same ridiculous 21 that i did -- a garb that was a work of 22, 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 23 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 24 of the king and the court. he 25 of me all the time, in the 26 way, as "this 27 giant," and "this horrible sky-towering monster," and "this 28 and 29 man-devouring ogre", and everybody took in all this bosh in the 30 way, and never smiled or seemed to notice that there was any 31 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 32 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.
i was in a 33 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 34 being doubted by some, because of the enchantment in my clothes. and yet it was nothing but an ordinary suit of fifteen-dollar slopshops. still, i was 35 enough to notice this detail, to wit: many of the terms used in the most matter-offact way by this great assemblage of the first ladies and gentlemen in the land would have made a comanche 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 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.
they were so troubled about my 36 clothes that they were 37 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 38! 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 39 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 40 clothes in another. i was shoved into a dark and narrow cell in a 41, with some 42 remnants for dinner, some 43 straw for a bed, and no end of rats for company.
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