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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's
+Court, Part 2., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 2.
+
+Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+Release Date: July 6, 2004 [EBook #7243]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONNECTICUT YANKEE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+          A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT
+
+                             by
+
+                         MARK TWAIN
+                     (Samuel L. Clemens)
+
+                           Part 2.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+MERLIN'S TOWER
+
+Inasmuch as I was now the second personage in the Kingdom, as far
+as political power and authority were concerned, much was made
+of me.  My raiment was of silks and velvets and cloth of gold,
+and by consequence was very showy, also uncomfortable.  But habit
+would soon reconcile me to my clothes; I was aware of that.  I was
+given the choicest suite of apartments in the castle, after
+the king's.  They were aglow with loud-colored silken hangings,
+but the stone floors had nothing but rushes on them for a carpet,
+and they were misfit rushes at that, being not all of one breed.
+As for conveniences, properly speaking, there weren't any.  I mean
+_little_ conveniences; it is the little conveniences that make
+the real comfort of life.  The big oaken chairs, graced with rude
+carvings, were well enough, but that was the stopping place.
+There was no soap, no matches, no looking-glass--except a metal
+one, about as powerful as a pail of water.  And not a chromo.
+I had been used to chromos for years, and I saw now that without
+my suspecting it a passion for art had got worked into the fabric
+of my being, and was become a part of me.  It made me homesick
+to look around over this proud and gaudy but heartless barrenness
+and remember that in our house in East Hartford, all unpretending
+as it was, you couldn't go into a room but you would find an
+insurance-chromo, or at least a three-color God-Bless-Our-Home
+over the door; and in the parlor we had nine.  But here, even in
+my grand room of state, there wasn't anything in the nature of
+a picture except a thing the size of a bedquilt, which was either
+woven or knitted (it had darned places in it), and nothing in it
+was the right color or the right shape; and as for proportions,
+even Raphael himself couldn't have botched them more formidably,
+after all his practice on those nightmares they call his "celebrated
+Hampton Court cartoons."  Raphael was a bird.  We had several
+of his chromos; one was his "Miraculous Draught of Fishes," where
+he puts in a miracle of his own--puts three men into a canoe which
+wouldn't have held a dog without upsetting.  I always admired
+to study R.'s art, it was so fresh and unconventional.
+
+There wasn't even a bell or a speaking-tube in the castle.  I had
+a great many servants, and those that were on duty lolled in the
+anteroom; and when I wanted one of them I had to go and call for him.
+There was no gas, there were no candles; a bronze dish half full
+of boarding-house butter with a blazing rag floating in it was
+the thing that produced what was regarded as light.  A lot of
+these hung along the walls and modified the dark, just toned it
+down enough to make it dismal.  If you went out at night, your
+servants carried torches.  There were no books, pens, paper or
+ink, and no glass in the openings they believed to be windows.
+It is a little thing--glass is--until it is absent, then it becomes
+a big thing.  But perhaps the worst of all was, that there wasn't
+any sugar, coffee, tea, or tobacco.  I saw that I was just another
+Robinson Crusoe cast away on an uninhabited island, with no society
+but some more or less tame animals, and if I wanted to make life
+bearable I must do as he did--invent, contrive, create, reorganize
+things; set brain and hand to work, and keep them busy.  Well,
+that was in my line.
+
+One thing troubled me along at first--the immense interest which
+people took in me.  Apparently the whole nation wanted a look
+at me.  It soon transpired that the eclipse had scared the British
+world almost to death; that while it lasted the whole country,
+from one end to the other, was in a pitiable state of panic, and
+the churches, hermitages, and monkeries overflowed with praying
+and weeping poor creatures who thought the end of the world was
+come.  Then had followed the news that the producer of this awful
+event was a stranger, a mighty magician at Arthur's court; that he
+could have blown out the sun like a candle, and was just going
+to do it when his mercy was purchased, and he then dissolved
+his enchantments, and was now recognized and honored as the man
+who had by his unaided might saved the globe from destruction and
+its peoples from extinction.  Now if you consider that everybody
+believed that, and not only believed it, but never even dreamed
+of doubting it, you will easily understand that there was not
+a person in all Britain that would not have walked fifty miles
+to get a sight of me.  Of course I was all the talk--all other
+subjects were dropped; even the king became suddenly a person of
+minor interest and notoriety.  Within twenty-four hours the
+delegations began to arrive, and from that time onward for a fortnight
+they kept coming.  The village was crowded, and all the countryside.
+I had to go out a dozen times a day and show myself to these
+reverent and awe-stricken multitudes.  It came to be a great burden,
+as to time and trouble, but of course it was at the same time
+compensatingly agreeable to be so celebrated and such a center
+of homage.  It turned Brer Merlin green with envy and spite, which
+was a great satisfaction to me.  But there was one thing I couldn't
+understand--nobody had asked for an autograph.  I spoke to Clarence
+about it.  By George!  I had to explain to him what it was.  Then
+he said nobody in the country could read or write but a few dozen
+priests.  Land! think of that.
+
+There was another thing that troubled me a little.  Those multitudes
+presently began to agitate for another miracle.  That was natural.
+To be able to carry back to their far homes the boast that they
+had seen the man who could command the sun, riding in the heavens,
+and be obeyed, would make them great in the eyes of their neighbors,
+and envied by them all; but to be able to also say they had seen
+him work a miracle themselves--why, people would come a distance
+to see _them_.  The pressure got to be pretty strong.  There was
+going to be an eclipse of the moon, and I knew the date and hour,
+but it was too far away.  Two years.  I would have given a good
+deal for license to hurry it up and use it now when there was
+a big market for it.  It seemed a great pity to have it wasted so,
+and come lagging along at a time when a body wouldn't have any
+use for it, as like as not.  If it had been booked for only a month
+away, I could have sold it short; but, as matters stood, I couldn't
+seem to cipher out any way to make it do me any good, so I gave up
+trying.  Next, Clarence found that old Merlin was making himself
+busy on the sly among those people.  He was spreading a report that
+I was a humbug, and that the reason I didn't accommodate the people
+with a miracle was because I couldn't.  I saw that I must do
+something.  I presently thought out a plan.
+
+By my authority as executive I threw Merlin into prison--the same
+cell I had occupied myself.  Then I gave public notice by herald
+and trumpet that I should be busy with affairs of state for
+a fortnight, but about the end of that time I would take a moment's
+leisure and blow up Merlin's stone tower by fires from heaven;
+in the meantime, whoso listened to evil reports about me, let him
+beware.  Furthermore, I would perform but this one miracle at
+this time, and no more; if it failed to satisfy and any murmured,
+I would turn the murmurers into horses, and make them useful.
+Quiet ensued.
+
+I took Clarence into my confidence, to a certain degree, and we
+went to work privately.  I told him that this was a sort of miracle
+that required a trifle of preparation, and that it would be sudden
+death to ever talk about these preparations to anybody.  That made
+his mouth safe enough.  Clandestinely we made a few bushels of
+first-rate blasting powder, and I superintended my armorers while
+they constructed a lightning-rod and some wires.  This old stone
+tower was very massive--and rather ruinous, too, for it was Roman,
+and four hundred years old.  Yes, and handsome, after a rude
+fashion, and clothed with ivy from base to summit, as with a shirt
+of scale mail.  It stood on a lonely eminence, in good view from
+the castle, and about half a mile away.
+
+Working by night, we stowed the powder in the tower--dug stones
+out, on the inside, and buried the powder in the walls themselves,
+which were fifteen feet thick at the base.  We put in a peck
+at a time, in a dozen places.  We could have blown up the Tower
+of London with these charges.  When the thirteenth night was come
+we put up our lightning-rod, bedded it in one of the batches of
+powder, and ran wires from it to the other batches.  Everybody
+had shunned that locality from the day of my proclamation, but
+on the morning of the fourteenth I thought best to warn the people,
+through the heralds, to keep clear away--a quarter of a mile away.
+Then added, by command, that at some time during the twenty-four
+hours I would consummate the miracle, but would first give a brief
+notice; by flags on the castle towers if in the daytime, by
+torch-baskets in the same places if at night.
+
+Thunder-showers had been tolerably frequent of late, and I was
+not much afraid of a failure; still, I shouldn't have cared for
+a delay of a day or two; I should have explained that I was busy
+with affairs of state yet, and the people must wait.
+
+Of course, we had a blazing sunny day--almost the first one without
+a cloud for three weeks; things always happen so.  I kept secluded,
+and watched the weather.  Clarence dropped in from time to time
+and said the public excitement was growing and growing all the
+time, and the whole country filling up with human masses as far
+as one could see from the battlements.  At last the wind sprang up
+and a cloud appeared--in the right quarter, too, and just at
+nightfall.  For a little while I watched that distant cloud spread
+and blacken, then I judged it was time for me to appear.  I ordered
+the torch-baskets to be lit, and Merlin liberated and sent to me.
+A quarter of an hour later I ascended the parapet and there found
+the king and the court assembled and gazing off in the darkness
+toward Merlin's Tower.  Already the darkness was so heavy that
+one could not see far; these people and the old turrets, being
+partly in deep shadow and partly in the red glow from the great
+torch-baskets overhead, made a good deal of a picture.
+
+Merlin arrived in a gloomy mood.  I said:
+
+"You wanted to burn me alive when I had not done you any harm,
+and latterly you have been trying to injure my professional
+reputation.  Therefore I am going to call down fire and blow up
+your tower, but it is only fair to give you a chance; now if you
+think you can break my enchantments and ward off the fires, step
+to the bat, it's your innings."
+
+"I can, fair sir, and I will. Doubt it not."
+
+He drew an imaginary circle on the stones of the roof, and burnt
+a pinch of powder in it, which sent up a small cloud of aromatic
+smoke, whereat everybody fell back and began to cross themselves
+and get uncomfortable.  Then he began to mutter and make passes
+in the air with his hands.  He worked himself up slowly and
+gradually into a sort of frenzy, and got to thrashing around with
+his arms like the sails of a windmill.  By this time the storm had
+about reached us; the gusts of wind were flaring the torches and
+making the shadows swash about, the first heavy drops of rain
+were falling, the world abroad was black as pitch, the lightning
+began to wink fitfully.  Of course, my rod would be loading itself
+now.  In fact, things were imminent. So I said:
+
+"You have had time enough.  I have given you every advantage,
+and not interfered.  It is plain your magic is weak. It is only
+fair that I begin now."
+
+I made about three passes in the air, and then there was an awful
+crash and that old tower leaped into the sky in chunks, along
+with a vast volcanic fountain of fire that turned night to noonday,
+and showed a thousand acres of human beings groveling on the ground
+in a general collapse of consternation.  Well, it rained mortar and
+masonry the rest of the week.  This was the report; but probably
+the facts would have modified it.
+
+It was an effective miracle.  The great bothersome temporary
+population vanished.  There were a good many thousand tracks
+in the mud the next morning, but they were all outward bound.
+If I had advertised another miracle I couldn't have raised an
+audience with a sheriff.
+
+Merlin's stock was flat.  The king wanted to stop his wages; he
+even wanted to banish him, but I interfered.  I said he would be
+useful to work the weather, and attend to small matters like that,
+and I would give him a lift now and then when his poor little
+parlor-magic soured on him.  There wasn't a rag of his tower left,
+but I had the government rebuild it for him, and advised him
+to take boarders; but he was too high-toned for that.  And as for
+being grateful, he never even said thank you.  He was a rather
+hard lot, take him how you might; but then you couldn't fairly
+expect a man to be sweet that had been set back so.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE BOSS
+
+To be vested with enormous authority is a fine thing; but to have
+the on-looking world consent to it is a finer.  The tower episode
+solidified my power, and made it impregnable.  If any were perchance
+disposed to be jealous and critical before that, they experienced
+a change of heart, now.  There was not any one in the kingdom
+who would have considered it good judgment to meddle with my matters.
+
+I was fast getting adjusted to my situation and circumstances.
+For a time, I used to wake up, mornings, and smile at my "dream,"
+and listen for the Colt's factory whistle; but that sort of thing
+played itself out, gradually, and at last I was fully able to realize
+that I was actually living in the sixth century, and in Arthur's
+court, not a lunatic asylum.  After that, I was just as much
+at home in that century as I could have been in any other; and
+as for preference, I wouldn't have traded it for the twentieth.
+Look at the opportunities here for a man of knowledge, brains,
+pluck, and enterprise to sail in and grow up with the country.
+The grandest field that ever was; and all my own; not a competitor;
+not a man who wasn't a baby to me in acquirements and capacities;
+whereas, what would I amount to in the twentieth century?  I should
+be foreman of a factory, that is about all; and could drag a seine
+down street any day and catch a hundred better men than myself.
+
+What a jump I had made!  I couldn't keep from thinking about it,
+and contemplating it, just as one does who has struck oil.  There
+was nothing back of me that could approach it, unless it might be
+Joseph's case; and Joseph's only approached it, it didn't equal
+it, quite.  For it stands to reason that as Joseph's splendid
+financial ingenuities advantaged nobody but the king, the general
+public must have regarded him with a good deal of disfavor, whereas
+I had done my entire public a kindness in sparing the sun, and was
+popular by reason of it.
+
+I was no shadow of a king; I was the substance; the king himself
+was the shadow.  My power was colossal; and it was not a mere
+name, as such things have generally been, it was the genuine
+article.  I stood here, at the very spring and source of the second
+great period of the world's history; and could see the trickling
+stream of that history gather and deepen and broaden, and roll
+its mighty tides down the far centuries; and I could note the
+upspringing of adventurers like myself in the shelter of its long
+array of thrones: De Montforts, Gavestons, Mortimers, Villierses;
+the war-making, campaign-directing wantons of France, and Charles
+the Second's scepter-wielding drabs; but nowhere in the procession
+was my full-sized fellow visible.  I was a Unique; and glad to know
+that that fact could not be dislodged or challenged for thirteen
+centuries and a half, for sure.  Yes, in power I was equal to
+the king.  At the same time there was another power that was
+a trifle stronger than both of us put together.  That was the Church.
+I do not wish to disguise that fact.  I couldn't, if I wanted to.
+But never mind about that, now; it will show up, in its proper
+place, later on.  It didn't cause me any trouble in the beginning
+--at least any of consequence.
+
+Well, it was a curious country, and full of interest.  And the
+people!  They were the quaintest and simplest and trustingest race;
+why, they were nothing but rabbits.  It was pitiful for a person
+born in a wholesome free atmosphere to listen to their humble
+and hearty outpourings of loyalty toward their king and Church
+and nobility; as if they had any more occasion to love and honor
+king and Church and noble than a slave has to love and honor
+the lash, or a dog has to love and honor the stranger that kicks him!
+Why, dear me, _any_ kind of royalty, howsoever modified, _any_ kind
+of aristocracy, howsoever pruned, is rightly an insult; but if you
+are born and brought up under that sort of arrangement you probably
+never find it out for yourself, and don't believe it when somebody
+else tells you.  It is enough to make a body ashamed of his race
+to think of the sort of froth that has always occupied its thrones
+without shadow of right or reason, and the seventh-rate people
+that have always figured as its aristocracies--a company of monarchs
+and nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved only poverty and
+obscurity if left, like their betters, to their own exertions.
+
+The most of King Arthur's British nation were slaves, pure and
+simple, and bore that name, and wore the iron collar on their
+necks; and the rest were slaves in fact, but without the name;
+they imagined themselves men and freemen, and called themselves
+so.  The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one
+object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble;
+to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might
+be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that
+they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and
+jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from paying them,
+be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures
+of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves
+the gods of this world.  And for all this, the thanks they got were
+cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they that they took
+even this sort of attention as an honor.
+
+Inherited ideas are a curious thing, and interesting to observe
+and examine.  I had mine, the king and his people had theirs.
+In both cases they flowed in ruts worn deep by time and habit,
+and the man who should have proposed to divert them by reason
+and argument would have had a long contract on his hands.  For
+instance, those people had inherited the idea that all men without
+title and a long pedigree, whether they had great natural gifts
+and acquirements or hadn't, were creatures of no more consideration
+than so many animals, bugs, insects; whereas I had inherited the idea
+that human daws who can consent to masquerade in the peacock-shams
+of inherited dignities and unearned titles, are of no good but
+to be laughed at.  The way I was looked upon was odd, but it was
+natural.  You know how the keeper and the public regard the elephant
+in the menagerie: well, that is the idea.  They are full of
+admiration of his vast bulk and his prodigious strength; they
+speak with pride of the fact that he can do a hundred marvels
+which are far and away beyond their own powers; and they speak
+with the same pride of the fact that in his wrath he is able
+to drive a thousand men before him.  But does that make him one
+of _them_?  No; the raggedest tramp in the pit would smile at
+the idea.  He couldn't comprehend it; couldn't take it in; couldn't
+in any remote way conceive of it.  Well, to the king, the nobles,
+and all the nation, down to the very slaves and tramps, I was
+just that kind of an elephant, and nothing more.  I was admired,
+also feared; but it was as an animal is admired and feared.
+The animal is not reverenced, neither was I; I was not even
+respected.  I had no pedigree, no inherited title; so in the king's
+and nobles' eyes I was mere dirt; the people regarded me with
+wonder and awe, but there was no reverence mixed with it; through
+the force of inherited ideas they were not able to conceive of
+anything being entitled to that except pedigree and lordship.
+There you see the hand of that awful power, the Roman Catholic
+Church.  In two or three little centuries it had converted a nation
+of men to a nation of worms.  Before the day of the Church's
+supremacy in the world, men were men, and held their heads up,
+and had a man's pride and spirit and independence; and what
+of greatness and position a person got, he got mainly by achievement,
+not by birth.  But then the Church came to the front, with an axe
+to grind; and she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way
+to skin a cat--or a nation; she invented "divine right of kings,"
+and propped it all around, brick by brick, with the Beatitudes
+--wrenching them from their good purpose to make them fortify
+an evil one; she preached (to the commoner) humility, obedience
+to superiors, the beauty of self-sacrifice; she preached (to the
+commoner) meekness under insult; preached (still to the commoner,
+always to the commoner) patience, meanness of spirit, non-resistance
+under oppression; and she introduced heritable ranks and
+aristocracies, and taught all the Christian populations of the earth
+to bow down to them and worship them.  Even down to my birth-century
+that poison was still in the blood of Christendom, and the best
+of English commoners was still content to see his inferiors
+impudently continuing to hold a number of positions, such as
+lordships and the throne, to which the grotesque laws of his country
+did not allow him to aspire; in fact, he was not merely contented
+with this strange condition of things, he was even able to persuade
+himself that he was proud of it.  It seems to show that there isn't
+anything you can't stand, if you are only born and bred to it.
+Of course that taint, that reverence for rank and title, had been
+in our American blood, too--I know that; but when I left America
+it had disappeared--at least to all intents and purposes.  The
+remnant of it was restricted to the dudes and dudesses.  When
+a disease has worked its way down to that level, it may fairly
+be said to be out of the system.
+
+But to return to my anomalous position in King Arthur's kingdom.
+Here I was, a giant among pigmies, a man among children, a master
+intelligence among intellectual moles: by all rational measurement
+the one and only actually great man in that whole British world;
+and yet there and then, just as in the remote England of my
+birth-time, the sheep-witted earl who could claim long descent
+from a king's leman, acquired at second-hand from the slums of
+London, was a better man than I was.  Such a personage was fawned
+upon in Arthur's realm and reverently looked up to by everybody,
+even though his dispositions were as mean as his intelligence,
+and his morals as base as his lineage.  There were times when
+_he_ could sit down in the king's presence, but I couldn't.  I could
+have got a title easily enough, and that would have raised me
+a large step in everybody's eyes; even in the king's, the giver
+of it.  But I didn't ask for it; and I declined it when it was
+offered.  I couldn't have enjoyed such a thing with my notions;
+and it wouldn't have been fair, anyway, because as far back as
+I could go, our tribe had always been short of the bar sinister.
+I couldn't have felt really and satisfactorily fine and proud
+and set-up over any title except one that should come from the nation
+itself, the only legitimate source; and such an one I hoped to win;
+and in the course of years of honest and honorable endeavor, I did
+win it and did wear it with a high and clean pride.  This title
+fell casually from the lips of a blacksmith, one day, in a village,
+was caught up as a happy thought and tossed from mouth to mouth
+with a laugh and an affirmative vote; in ten days it had swept
+the kingdom, and was become as familiar as the king's name.  I was
+never known by any other designation afterward, whether in the
+nation's talk or in grave debate upon matters of state at the
+council-board of the sovereign.  This title, translated into modern
+speech, would be THE BOSS.  Elected by the nation.  That suited me.
+And it was a pretty high title.  There were very few THE'S, and
+I was one of them.  If you spoke of the duke, or the earl, or
+the bishop, how could anybody tell which one you meant?  But if
+you spoke of The King or The Queen or The Boss, it was different.
+
+Well, I liked the king, and as king I respected him--respected
+the office; at least respected it as much as I was capable of
+respecting any unearned supremacy; but as MEN I looked down upon
+him and his nobles--privately.  And he and they liked me, and
+respected my office; but as an animal, without birth or sham title,
+they looked down upon me--and were not particularly private about it,
+either.  I didn't charge for my opinion about them, and they didn't
+charge for their opinion about me: the account was square, the
+books balanced, everybody was satisfied.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE TOURNAMENT
+
+They were always having grand tournaments there at Camelot; and
+very stirring and picturesque and ridiculous human bull-fights
+they were, too, but just a little wearisome to the practical mind.
+However, I was generally on hand--for two reasons: a man must
+not hold himself aloof from the things which his friends and his
+community have at heart if he would be liked--especially as
+a statesman; and both as business man and statesman I wanted
+to study the tournament and see if I couldn't invent an improvement
+on it.  That reminds me to remark, in passing, that the very first
+official thing I did, in my administration--and it was on the very
+first day of it, too--was to start a patent office; for I knew
+that a country without a patent office and good patent laws was
+just a crab, and couldn't travel any way but sideways or backways.
+
+Things ran along, a tournament nearly every week; and now and then
+the boys used to want me to take a hand--I mean Sir Launcelot and
+the rest--but I said I would by and by; no hurry yet, and too much
+government machinery to oil up and set to rights and start a-going.
+
+We had one tournament which was continued from day to day during
+more than a week, and as many as five hundred knights took part
+in it, from first to last.  They were weeks gathering.  They came
+on horseback from everywhere; from the very ends of the country,
+and even from beyond the sea; and many brought ladies, and all
+brought squires and troops of servants.  It was a most gaudy and
+gorgeous crowd, as to costumery, and very characteristic of the
+country and the time, in the way of high animal spirits, innocent
+indecencies of language, and happy-hearted indifference to morals.
+It was fight or look on, all day and every day; and sing, gamble,
+dance, carouse half the night every night.  They had a most noble
+good time.  You never saw such people.  Those banks of beautiful
+ladies, shining in their barbaric splendors, would see a knight
+sprawl from his horse in the lists with a lanceshaft the thickness
+of your ankle clean through him and the blood spouting, and instead
+of fainting they would clap their hands and crowd each other for a
+better view; only sometimes one would dive into her handkerchief,
+and look ostentatiously broken-hearted, and then you could lay
+two to one that there was a scandal there somewhere and she was
+afraid the public hadn't found it out.
+
+The noise at night would have been annoying to me ordinarily, but
+I didn't mind it in the present circumstances, because it kept me
+from hearing the quacks detaching legs and arms from the day's
+cripples.  They ruined an uncommon good old cross-cut saw for me,
+and broke the saw-buck, too, but I let it pass.  And as for my
+axe--well, I made up my mind that the next time I lent an axe
+to a surgeon I would pick my century.
+
+I not only watched this tournament from day to day, but detailed
+an intelligent priest from my Department of Public Morals and
+Agriculture, and ordered him to report it; for it was my purpose
+by and by, when I should have gotten the people along far enough,
+to start a newspaper.  The first thing you want in a new country,
+is a patent office; then work up your school system; and after that,
+out with your paper.  A newspaper has its faults, and plenty of them,
+but no matter, it's hark from the tomb for a dead nation, and don't
+you forget it.  You can't resurrect a dead nation without it; there
+isn't any way.  So I wanted to sample things, and be finding out
+what sort of reporter-material I might be able to rake together out
+of the sixth century when I should come to need it.
+
+Well, the priest did very well, considering.  He got in all
+the details, and that is a good thing in a local item: you see,
+he had kept books for the undertaker-department of his church
+when he was younger, and there, you know, the money's in the details;
+the more details, the more swag: bearers, mutes, candles, prayers
+--everything counts; and if the bereaved don't buy prayers enough
+you mark up your candles with a forked pencil, and your bill
+shows up all right.  And he had a good knack at getting in the
+complimentary thing here and there about a knight that was likely
+to advertise--no, I mean a knight that had influence; and he also
+had a neat gift of exaggeration, for in his time he had kept door
+for a pious hermit who lived in a sty and worked miracles.
+
+Of course this novice's report lacked whoop and crash and lurid
+description, and therefore wanted the true ring; but its antique
+wording was quaint and sweet and simple, and full of the fragrances
+and flavors of the time, and these little merits made up in a measure
+for its more important lacks.  Here is an extract from it:
+
+  Then Sir Brian de les Isles and Grummore Grummorsum,
+  knights of the castle, encountered with Sir Aglovale and
+  Sir Tor, and Sir Tor smote down Sir Grummore Grummorsum
+  to the earth.  Then came Sir Carados of the dolorous
+  tower, and Sir Turquine, knights of the castle, and
+  there encountered with them Sir Percivale de Galis
+  and Sir Lamorak de Galis, that were two brethren, and
+  there encountered Sir Percivale with Sir Carados, and
+  either brake their spears unto their hands, and then
+  Sir Turquine with Sir Lamorak, and either of them smote
+  down other, horse and all, to the earth, and either
+  parties rescued other and horsed them again.  And Sir
+  Arnold, and Sir Gauter, knights of the castle,
+  encountered with Sir Brandiles and Sir Kay, and these
+  four knights encountered mightily, and brake their
+  spears to their hands.  Then came Sir Pertolope from
+  the castle, and there encountered with him Sir Lionel,
+  and there Sir Pertolope the green knight smote down Sir
+  Lionel, brother to Sir Launcelot.  All this was marked
+  by noble heralds, who bare him best, and their names.
+  Then Sir Bleobaris brake his spear upon Sir Gareth,
+  but of that stroke Sir Bleobaris fell to the earth.
+  When Sir Galihodin saw that, he bad Sir Gareth keep him,
+  and Sir Gareth smote him to the earth.  Then Sir Galihud
+  gat a spear to avenge his brother, and in the same wise
+  Sir Gareth served him, and Sir Dinadan and his brother
+  La Cote Male Taile, and Sir Sagramore le Disirous, and
+  Sir Dodinas le Savage; all these he bare down with one
+  spear.  When King Aswisance of Ireland saw Sir Gareth
+  fare so he marvelled what he might be, that one time
+  seemed green, and another time, at his again coming,
+  he seemed blue.  And thus at every course that he rode
+  to and fro he changed his color, so that there might
+  neither king nor knight have ready cognizance of him.
+  Then Sir Agwisance the King of Ireland encountered
+  with Sir Gareth, and there Sir Gareth smote him from
+  his horse, saddle and all.  And then came King Carados
+  of Scotland, and Sir Gareth smote him down horse and
+  man.  And in the same wise he served King Uriens of the
+  land of Gore.  And then there came in Sir Bagdemagus,
+  and Sir Gareth smote him down horse and man to the
+  earth.  And Bagdemagus's son Meliganus brake a spear
+  upon Sir Gareth mightily and knightly.  And then Sir
+  Galahault the noble prince cried on high, Knight with
+  the many colors, well hast thou justed; now make thee
+  ready that I may just with thee.  Sir Gareth heard him,
+  and he gat a great spear, and so they encountered
+  together, and there the prince brake his spear; but Sir
+  Gareth smote him upon the left side of the helm, that
+  he reeled here and there, and he had fallen down had not
+  his men recovered him.  Truly, said King Arthur, that
+  knight with the many colors is a good knight.  Wherefore
+  the king called unto him Sir Launcelot, and prayed him
+  to encounter with that knight.  Sir, said Launcelot, I
+  may as well find in my heart for to forbear him at
+  this time, for he hath had travail enough this day, and
+  when a good knight doth so well upon some day, it is
+  no good knight's part to let him of his worship, and,
+  namely, when he seeth a knight hath done so great
+  labour; for peradventure, said Sir Launcelot, his
+  quarrel is here this day, and peradventure he is best
+  beloved with this lady of all that be here, for I see
+  well he paineth himself and enforceth him to do great
+  deeds, and therefore, said Sir Launcelot, as for me,
+  this day he shall have the honour; though it lay in my
+  power to put him from it, I would not.
+
+There was an unpleasant little episode that day, which for reasons
+of state I struck out of my priest's report.  You will have noticed
+that Garry was doing some great fighting in the engagement.  When
+I say Garry I mean Sir Gareth.  Garry was my private pet name
+for him; it suggests that I had a deep affection for him, and that
+was the case.  But it was a private pet name only, and never spoken
+aloud to any one, much less to him; being a noble, he would not
+have endured a familiarity like that from me.  Well, to proceed:
+I sat in the private box set apart for me as the king's minister.
+While Sir Dinadan was waiting for his turn to enter the lists,
+he came in there and sat down and began to talk; for he was always
+making up to me, because I was a stranger and he liked to have
+a fresh market for his jokes, the most of them having reached that
+stage of wear where the teller has to do the laughing himself while
+the other person looks sick.  I had always responded to his efforts
+as well as I could, and felt a very deep and real kindness for him,
+too, for the reason that if by malice of fate he knew the one
+particular anecdote which I had heard oftenest and had most hated
+and most loathed all my life, he had at least spared it me.  It was
+one which I had heard attributed to every humorous person who
+had ever stood on American soil, from Columbus down to Artemus Ward.
+It was about a humorous lecturer who flooded an ignorant audience
+with the killingest jokes for an hour and never got a laugh; and
+then when he was leaving, some gray simpletons wrung him gratefully
+by the hand and said it had been the funniest thing they had ever
+heard, and "it was all they could do to keep from laughin' right
+out in meetin'."  That anecdote never saw the day that it was
+worth the telling; and yet I had sat under the telling of it
+hundreds and thousands and millions and billions of times, and
+cried and cursed all the way through.  Then who can hope to know
+what my feelings were, to hear this armor-plated ass start in on
+it again, in the murky twilight of tradition, before the dawn of
+history, while even Lactantius might be referred to as "the late
+Lactantius," and the Crusades wouldn't be born for five hundred
+years yet?  Just as he finished, the call-boy came; so, haw-hawing
+like a demon, he went rattling and clanking out like a crate of
+loose castings, and I knew nothing more.  It was some minutes
+before I came to, and then I opened my eyes just in time to see
+Sir Gareth fetch him an awful welt, and I unconsciously out with
+the prayer, "I hope to gracious he's killed!"  But by ill-luck,
+before I had got half through with the words, Sir Gareth crashed
+into Sir Sagramor le Desirous and sent him thundering over his
+horse's crupper, and Sir Sagramor caught my remark and thought
+I meant it for _him_.
+
+Well, whenever one of those people got a thing into his head,
+there was no getting it out again.  I knew that, so I saved my
+breath, and offered no explanations.  As soon as Sir Sagramor
+got well, he notified me that there was a little account to settle
+between us, and he named a day three or four years in the future;
+place of settlement, the lists where the offense had been given.
+I said I would be ready when he got back.  You see, he was going
+for the Holy Grail.  The boys all took a flier at the Holy Grail
+now and then.  It was a several years' cruise.  They always put in
+the long absence snooping around, in the most conscientious way,
+though none of them had any idea where the Holy Grail really was,
+and I don't think any of them actually expected to find it, or
+would have known what to do with it if he _had_ run across it.
+You see, it was just the Northwest Passage of that day, as you may
+say; that was all.  Every year expeditions went out holy grailing,
+and next year relief expeditions went out to hunt for _them_.  There
+was worlds of reputation in it, but no money.  Why, they actually
+wanted _me_ to put in!  Well, I should smile.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION
+
+The Round Table soon heard of the challenge, and of course it was
+a good deal discussed, for such things interested the boys.
+The king thought I ought now to set forth in quest of adventures,
+so that I might gain renown and be the more worthy to meet
+Sir Sagramor when the several years should have rolled away.
+I excused myself for the present; I said it would take me three
+or four years yet to get things well fixed up and going smoothly;
+then I should be ready; all the chances were that at the end of
+that time Sir Sagramor would still be out grailing, so no valuable
+time would be lost by the postponement; I should then have been
+in office six or seven years, and I believed my system and machinery
+would be so well developed that I could take a holiday without
+its working any harm.
+
+I was pretty well satisfied with what I had already accomplished.
+In various quiet nooks and corners I had the beginnings of all
+sorts of industries under way--nuclei of future vast factories,
+the iron and steel missionaries of my future civilization.  In these
+were gathered together the brightest young minds I could find,
+and I kept agents out raking the country for more, all the time.
+I was training a crowd of ignorant folk into experts--experts
+in every sort of handiwork and scientific calling.  These nurseries
+of mine went smoothly and privately along undisturbed in their
+obscure country retreats, for nobody was allowed to come into their
+precincts without a special permit--for I was afraid of the Church.
+
+I had started a teacher-factory and a lot of Sunday-schools the
+first thing; as a result, I now had an admirable system of graded
+schools in full blast in those places, and also a complete variety
+of Protestant congregations all in a prosperous and growing
+condition.  Everybody could be any kind of a Christian he wanted
+to; there was perfect freedom in that matter.  But I confined public
+religious teaching to the churches and the Sunday-schools, permitting
+nothing of it in my other educational buildings.  I could have
+given my own sect the preference and made everybody a Presbyterian
+without any trouble, but that would have been to affront a law
+of human nature: spiritual wants and instincts are as various in
+the human family as are physical appetites, complexions, and
+features, and a man is only at his best, morally, when he is
+equipped with the religious garment whose color and shape and
+size most nicely accommodate themselves to the spiritual complexion,
+angularities, and stature of the individual who wears it; and,
+besides, I was afraid of a united Church; it makes a mighty power,
+the mightiest conceivable, and then when it by and by gets into
+selfish hands, as it is always bound to do, it means death to
+human liberty and paralysis to human thought.
+
+All mines were royal property, and there were a good many of them.
+They had formerly been worked as savages always work mines--holes
+grubbed in the earth and the mineral brought up in sacks of hide by
+hand, at the rate of a ton a day; but I had begun to put the mining
+on a scientific basis as early as I could.
+
+Yes, I had made pretty handsome progress when Sir Sagramor's
+challenge struck me.
+
+Four years rolled by--and then!  Well, you would never imagine
+it in the world.  Unlimited power is the ideal thing when it is in
+safe hands.  The despotism of heaven is the one absolutely perfect
+government.  An earthly despotism would be the absolutely perfect
+earthly government, if the conditions were the same, namely, the
+despot the perfectest individual of the human race, and his lease
+of life perpetual.  But as a perishable perfect man must die, and
+leave his despotism in the hands of an imperfect successor, an
+earthly despotism is not merely a bad form of government, it is
+the worst form that is possible.
+
+My works showed what a despot could do with the resources of
+a kingdom at his command.  Unsuspected by this dark land, I had
+the civilization of the nineteenth century booming under its very
+nose!  It was fenced away from the public view, but there it was,
+a gigantic and unassailable fact--and to be heard from, yet, if
+I lived and had luck.  There it was, as sure a fact and as substantial
+a fact as any serene volcano, standing innocent with its smokeless
+summit in the blue sky and giving no sign of the rising hell in its
+bowels.  My schools and churches were children four years before;
+they were grown-up now; my shops of that day were vast factories
+now; where I had a dozen trained men then, I had a thousand now;
+where I had one brilliant expert then, I had fifty now.  I stood
+with my hand on the cock, so to speak, ready to turn it on and
+flood the midnight world with light at any moment.  But I was not
+going to do the thing in that sudden way.  It was not my policy.
+The people could not have stood it; and, moreover, I should have
+had the Established Roman Catholic Church on my back in a minute.
+
+No, I had been going cautiously all the while.  I had had confidential
+agents trickling through the country some time, whose office was
+to undermine knighthood by imperceptible degrees, and to gnaw
+a little at this and that and the other superstition, and so prepare
+the way gradually for a better order of things.  I was turning on
+my light one-candle-power at a time, and meant to continue to do so.
+
+I had scattered some branch schools secretly about the kingdom,
+and they were doing very well.  I meant to work this racket more
+and more, as time wore on, if nothing occurred to frighten me.
+One of my deepest secrets was my West Point--my military academy.
+I kept that most jealously out of sight; and I did the same with my
+naval academy which I had established at a remote seaport.  Both
+were prospering to my satisfaction.
+
+Clarence was twenty-two now, and was my head executive, my right
+hand.  He was a darling; he was equal to anything; there wasn't
+anything he couldn't turn his hand to.  Of late I had been training
+him for journalism, for the time seemed about right for a start
+in the newspaper line; nothing big, but just a small weekly for
+experimental circulation in my civilization-nurseries.  He took
+to it like a duck; there was an editor concealed in him, sure.
+Already he had doubled himself in one way; he talked sixth century
+and wrote nineteenth.  His journalistic style was climbing,
+steadily; it was already up to the back settlement Alabama mark,
+and couldn't be told from the editorial output of that region
+either by matter or flavor.
+
+We had another large departure on hand, too.  This was a telegraph
+and a telephone; our first venture in this line.  These wires were
+for private service only, as yet, and must be kept private until
+a riper day should come.  We had a gang of men on the road, working
+mainly by night.  They were stringing ground wires; we were afraid
+to put up poles, for they would attract too much inquiry.  Ground
+wires were good enough, in both instances, for my wires were
+protected by an insulation of my own invention which was perfect.
+My men had orders to strike across country, avoiding roads, and
+establishing connection with any considerable towns whose lights
+betrayed their presence, and leaving experts in charge. Nobody
+could tell you how to find any place in the kingdom, for nobody
+ever went intentionally to any place, but only struck it by
+accident in his wanderings, and then generally left it without
+thinking to inquire what its name was.  At one time and another
+we had sent out topographical expeditions to survey and map the
+kingdom, but the priests had always interfered and raised trouble.
+So we had given the thing up, for the present; it would be poor
+wisdom to antagonize the Church.
+
+As for the general condition of the country, it was as it had been
+when I arrived in it, to all intents and purposes.  I had made
+changes, but they were necessarily slight, and they were not
+noticeable.  Thus far, I had not even meddled with taxation,
+outside of the taxes which provided the royal revenues.  I had
+systematized those, and put the service on an effective and
+righteous basis.  As a result, these revenues were already quadrupled,
+and yet the burden was so much more equably distributed than
+before, that all the kingdom felt a sense of relief, and the praises
+of my administration were hearty and general.
+
+Personally, I struck an interruption, now, but I did not mind it,
+it could not have happened at a better time.  Earlier it could
+have annoyed me, but now everything was in good hands and swimming
+right along.  The king had reminded me several times, of late, that
+the postponement I had asked for, four years before, had about
+run out now.  It was a hint that I ought to be starting out to seek
+adventures and get up a reputation of a size to make me worthy
+of the honor of breaking a lance with Sir Sagramor, who was still
+out grailing, but was being hunted for by various relief expeditions,
+and might be found any year, now.  So you see I was expecting
+this interruption; it did not take me by surprise.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE YANKEE IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURES
+
+There never was such a country for wandering liars; and they were
+of both sexes.  Hardly a month went by without one of these tramps
+arriving; and generally loaded with a tale about some princess or
+other wanting help to get her out of some far-away castle where
+she was held in captivity by a lawless scoundrel, usually a giant.
+Now you would think that the first thing the king would do after
+listening to such a novelette from an entire stranger, would be
+to ask for credentials--yes, and a pointer or two as to locality
+of castle, best route to it, and so on.  But nobody ever thought
+of so simple and common-sense a thing at that.  No, everybody
+swallowed these people's lies whole, and never asked a question
+of any sort or about anything.  Well, one day when I was not
+around, one of these people came along--it was a she one, this
+time--and told a tale of the usual pattern.  Her mistress was
+a captive in a vast and gloomy castle, along with forty-four other
+young and beautiful girls, pretty much all of them princesses;
+they had been languishing in that cruel captivity for twenty-six
+years; the masters of the castle were three stupendous brothers,
+each with four arms and one eye--the eye in the center of the
+forehead, and as big as a fruit.  Sort of fruit not mentioned;
+their usual slovenliness in statistics.
+
+Would you believe it?  The king and the whole Round Table were
+in raptures over this preposterous opportunity for adventure.
+Every knight of the Table jumped for the chance, and begged for it;
+but to their vexation and chagrin the king conferred it upon me,
+who had not asked for it at all.
+
+By an effort, I contained my joy when Clarence brought me the news.
+But he--he could not contain his.  His mouth gushed delight and
+gratitude in a steady discharge--delight in my good fortune,
+gratitude to the king for this splendid mark of his favor for me.
+He could keep neither his legs nor his body still, but pirouetted
+about the place in an airy ecstasy of happiness.
+
+On my side, I could have cursed the kindness that conferred upon
+me this benefaction, but I kept my vexation under the surface
+for policy's sake, and did what I could to let on to be glad.
+Indeed, I _said_ I was glad.  And in a way it was true; I was as
+glad as a person is when he is scalped.
+
+Well, one must make the best of things, and not waste time with
+useless fretting, but get down to business and see what can be
+done.  In all lies there is wheat among the chaff; I must get at
+the wheat in this case: so I sent for the girl and she came.  She
+was a comely enough creature, and soft and modest, but, if signs
+went for anything, she didn't know as much as a lady's watch.  I said:
+
+"My dear, have you been questioned as to particulars?"
+
+She said she hadn't.
+
+"Well, I didn't expect you had, but I thought I would ask, to make
+sure; it's the way I've been raised.  Now you mustn't take it
+unkindly if I remind you that as we don't know you, we must go
+a little slow.  You may be all right, of course, and we'll hope
+that you are; but to take it for granted isn't business.  _You_
+understand that.  I'm obliged to ask you a few questions; just
+answer up fair and square, and don't be afraid.  Where do you
+live, when you are at home?"
+
+"In the land of Moder, fair sir."
+
+"Land of Moder.  I don't remember hearing of it before.
+Parents living?"
+
+"As to that, I know not if they be yet on live, sith it is many
+years that I have lain shut up in the castle."
+
+"Your name, please?"
+
+"I hight the Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise, an it please you."
+
+"Do you know anybody here who can identify you?"
+
+"That were not likely, fair lord, I being come hither now for
+the first time."
+
+"Have you brought any letters--any documents--any proofs that
+you are trustworthy and truthful?"
+
+"Of a surety, no; and wherefore should I?  Have I not a tongue,
+and cannot I say all that myself?"
+
+"But _your_ saying it, you know, and somebody else's saying it,
+is different."
+
+"Different?  How might that be?  I fear me I do not understand."
+
+"Don't _understand_?  Land of--why, you see--you see--why, great Scott,
+can't you understand a little thing like that?  Can't you understand
+the difference between your--_why_ do you look so innocent and idiotic!"
+
+"I?  In truth I know not, but an it were the will of God."
+
+"Yes, yes, I reckon that's about the size of it.  Don't mind my
+seeming excited; I'm not.  Let us change the subject.  Now as
+to this castle, with forty-five princesses in it, and three ogres
+at the head of it, tell me--where is this harem?"
+
+"Harem?"
+
+"The _castle_, you understand; where is the castle?"
+
+"Oh, as to that, it is great, and strong, and well beseen, and
+lieth in a far country.  Yes, it is many leagues."
+
+"_How_ many?"
+
+"Ah, fair sir, it were woundily hard to tell, they are so many,
+and do so lap the one upon the other, and being made all in the
+same image and tincted with the same color, one may not know
+the one league from its fellow, nor how to count them except
+they be taken apart, and ye wit well it were God's work to do
+that, being not within man's capacity; for ye will note--"
+
+"Hold on, hold on, never mind about the distance; _whereabouts_
+does the castle lie?  What's the direction from here?"
+
+"Ah, please you sir, it hath no direction from here; by reason
+that the road lieth not straight, but turneth evermore; wherefore
+the direction of its place abideth not, but is some time under
+the one sky and anon under another, whereso if ye be minded that
+it is in the east, and wend thitherward, ye shall observe that
+the way of the road doth yet again turn upon itself by the space
+of half a circle, and this marvel happing again and yet again and
+still again, it will grieve you that you had thought by vanities
+of the mind to thwart and bring to naught the will of Him that
+giveth not a castle a direction from a place except it pleaseth
+Him, and if it please Him not, will the rather that even all castles
+and all directions thereunto vanish out of the earth, leaving the
+places wherein they tarried desolate and vacant, so warning His
+creatures that where He will He will, and where He will not He--"
+
+"Oh, that's all right, that's all right, give us a rest; never mind
+about the direction, _hang_ the direction--I beg pardon, I beg
+a thousand pardons, I am not well to-day; pay no attention when
+I soliloquize, it is an old habit, an old, bad habit, and hard
+to get rid of when one's digestion is all disordered with eating
+food that was raised forever and ever before he was born; good
+land! a man can't keep his functions regular on spring chickens
+thirteen hundred years old.  But come--never mind about that;
+let's--have you got such a thing as a map of that region about
+you?  Now a good map--"
+
+"Is it peradventure that manner of thing which of late the unbelievers
+have brought from over the great seas, which, being boiled in oil,
+and an onion and salt added thereto, doth--"
+
+"What, a map?  What are you talking about?  Don't you know what
+a map is?  There, there, never mind, don't explain, I hate
+explanations; they fog a thing up so that you can't tell anything
+about it.  Run along, dear; good-day; show her the way, Clarence."
+
+Oh, well, it was reasonably plain, now, why these donkeys didn't
+prospect these liars for details.  It may be that this girl had
+a fact in her somewhere, but I don't believe you could have sluiced
+it out with a hydraulic; nor got it with the earlier forms of
+blasting, even; it was a case for dynamite.  Why, she was a perfect
+ass; and yet the king and his knights had listened to her as if
+she had been a leaf out of the gospel.  It kind of sizes up the
+whole party.  And think of the simple ways of this court: this
+wandering wench hadn't any more trouble to get access to the king
+in his palace than she would have had to get into the poorhouse
+in my day and country.  In fact, he was glad to see her, glad
+to hear her tale; with that adventure of hers to offer, she was
+as welcome as a corpse is to a coroner.
+
+Just as I was ending-up these reflections, Clarence came back.
+I remarked upon the barren result of my efforts with the girl;
+hadn't got hold of a single point that could help me to find
+the castle.  The youth looked a little surprised, or puzzled,
+or something, and intimated that he had been wondering to himself
+what I had wanted to ask the girl all those questions for.
+
+"Why, great guns," I said, "don't I want to find the castle?  And
+how else would I go about it?"
+
+"La, sweet your worship, one may lightly answer that, I ween.
+She will go with thee.  They always do.  She will ride with thee."
+
+"Ride with me?  Nonsense!"
+
+"But of a truth she will.  She will ride with thee.  Thou shalt see."
+
+"What?  She browse around the hills and scour the woods with me
+--alone--and I as good as engaged to be married?  Why, it's scandalous.
+Think how it would look."
+
+My, the dear face that rose before me!  The boy was eager to know
+all about this tender matter.  I swore him to secrecy and then
+whispered her name--"Puss Flanagan."  He looked disappointed,
+and said he didn't remember the countess.  How natural it was for
+the little courtier to give her a rank.  He asked me where she lived.
+
+"In East Har--" I came to myself and stopped, a little confused;
+then I said, "Never mind, now; I'll tell you some time."
+
+And might he see her?  Would I let him see her some day?
+
+It was but a little thing to promise--thirteen hundred years
+or so--and he so eager; so I said Yes.  But I sighed; I couldn't
+help it.  And yet there was no sense in sighing, for she wasn't
+born yet.  But that is the way we are made: we don't reason,
+where we feel; we just feel.
+
+My expedition was all the talk that day and that night, and the
+boys were very good to me, and made much of me, and seemed to have
+forgotten their vexation and disappointment, and come to be as
+anxious for me to hive those ogres and set those ripe old virgins
+loose as if it were themselves that had the contract.  Well, they
+_were_ good children--but just children, that is all.  And they
+gave me no end of points about how to scout for giants, and how
+to scoop them in; and they told me all sorts of charms against
+enchantments, and gave me salves and other rubbish to put on my
+wounds.  But it never occurred to one of them to reflect that if
+I was such a wonderful necromancer as I was pretending to be,
+I ought not to need salves or instructions, or charms against
+enchantments, and, least of all, arms and armor, on a foray of any
+kind--even against fire-spouting dragons, and devils hot from
+perdition, let alone such poor adversaries as these I was after,
+these commonplace ogres of the back settlements.
+
+I was to have an early breakfast, and start at dawn, for that was
+the usual way; but I had the demon's own time with my armor,
+and this delayed me a little.  It is troublesome to get into, and
+there is so much detail.  First you wrap a layer or two of blanket
+around your body, for a sort of cushion and to keep off the cold
+iron; then you put on your sleeves and shirt of chain mail--these
+are made of small steel links woven together, and they form a fabric
+so flexible that if you toss your shirt onto the floor, it slumps
+into a pile like a peck of wet fish-net; it is very heavy and
+is nearly the uncomfortablest material in the world for a night
+shirt, yet plenty used it for that--tax collectors, and reformers,
+and one-horse kings with a defective title, and those sorts of
+people; then you put on your shoes--flat-boats roofed over with
+interleaving bands of steel--and screw your clumsy spurs into
+the heels.  Next you buckle your greaves on your legs, and your
+cuisses on your thighs; then come your backplate and your breastplate,
+and you begin to feel crowded; then you hitch onto the breastplate
+the half-petticoat of broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs
+down in front but is scolloped out behind so you can sit down,
+and isn't any real improvement on an inverted coal scuttle, either
+for looks or for wear, or to wipe your hands on; next you belt
+on your sword; then you put your stove-pipe joints onto your arms,
+your iron gauntlets onto your hands, your iron rat-trap onto your
+head, with a rag of steel web hitched onto it to hang over the back
+of your neck--and there you are, snug as a candle in a candle-mould.
+This is no time to dance.  Well, a man that is packed away like
+that is a nut that isn't worth the cracking, there is so little of
+the meat, when you get down to it, by comparison with the shell.
+
+The boys helped me, or I never could have got in.  Just as we
+finished, Sir Bedivere happened in, and I saw that as like as not
+I hadn't chosen the most convenient outfit for a long trip.  How
+stately he looked; and tall and broad and grand.  He had on his
+head a conical steel casque that only came down to his ears, and
+for visor had only a narrow steel bar that extended down to his
+upper lip and protected his nose; and all the rest of him, from
+neck to heel, was flexible chain mail, trousers and all.  But
+pretty much all of him was hidden under his outside garment, which
+of course was of chain mail, as I said, and hung straight from his
+shoulders to his ankles; and from his middle to the bottom, both
+before and behind, was divided, so that he could ride and let the
+skirts hang down on each side.  He was going grailing, and it was
+just the outfit for it, too.  I would have given a good deal for
+that ulster, but it was too late now to be fooling around.  The sun
+was just up, the king and the court were all on hand to see me off
+and wish me luck; so it wouldn't be etiquette for me to tarry.
+You don't get on your horse yourself; no, if you tried it you
+would get disappointed.  They carry you out, just as they carry
+a sun-struck man to the drug store, and put you on, and help get
+you to rights, and fix your feet in the stirrups; and all the while
+you do feel so strange and stuffy and like somebody else--like
+somebody that has been married on a sudden, or struck by lightning,
+or something like that, and hasn't quite fetched around yet, and
+is sort of numb, and can't just get his bearings.  Then they
+stood up the mast they called a spear, in its socket by my left
+foot, and I gripped it with my hand; lastly they hung my shield
+around my neck, and I was all complete and ready to up anchor
+and get to sea.  Everybody was as good to me as they could be,
+and a maid of honor gave me the stirrup-cup her own self.  There was
+nothing more to do now, but for that damsel to get up behind me on
+a pillion, which she did, and put an arm or so around me to hold on.
+
+And so we started, and everybody gave us a goodbye and waved their
+handkerchiefs or helmets.  And everybody we met, going down the hill
+and through the village was respectful to us, except some shabby
+little boys on the outskirts.  They said:
+
+"Oh, what a guy!"  And hove clods at us.
+
+In my experience boys are the same in all ages.  They don't respect
+anything, they don't care for anything or anybody.  They say
+"Go up, baldhead" to the prophet going his unoffending way in
+the gray of antiquity; they sass me in the holy gloom of the
+Middle Ages; and I had seen them act the same way in Buchanan's
+administration; I remember, because I was there and helped.  The
+prophet had his bears and settled with his boys; and I wanted
+to get down and settle with mine, but it wouldn't answer, because
+I couldn't have got up again.  I hate a country without a derrick.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's
+Court, Part 2., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
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