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 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.
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.
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.
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
slopshops. Still, I was sane
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 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.
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. |