“Crawl a quarter of a mile through witch-hazel and swamp on our bellies, I expect,” says I.
“There hain’t any law compellin’ you to come, Binney,” says Mark, “but I f-figgered you wouldn’t want to miss anythin’.”
“I don’t,” says I, “not even a good lickin’, which most likely we’ll git. You hain’t got any idea, Mark,” says I, “how I love a good lickin’.”
He laughed and says, “Say, Binney, anybody’d think you was a million years old. Hain’t there any f-f-fun in you? Here’s a reg’lar game to p-play that beats any game you can think up, and we can add to it by p-pretendin’.” He was the greatest fellow for pretending I ever saw, and when he was at it he almost had you believing that what he made believe was so.
“Go on,” says I, “start up your game. I’ll be taggin’ right on behind.”
“All right,” says he. “Us four kids are the f-f-faithful followers of a young Duke. This young Duke has disappeared, and we kind of figger his enemy, the Knight With the Black Gauntlets, has captured him and is holdin’ him for r-ransom. See? But we don’t know where. But our scouts tell us the Knight With the Black Gauntlets is close to our castle and we set out to watch him to see if we can’t rescue the Duke—and here we be. We know our enemy’s ahead somewheres, and we want to git clost to him to watch him and overhear what he s-says, if he says anythin’. Most likely the Duke will make us all knights if we rescue him, and I’ve always sort of hankered to be a knight.”
“Me too,” says Plunk. “Them knights sure had a circus, ridin’ around with lances and bustin’ up tournaments and lickin’ everybody they met by slammin’ ’em over the head with an iron mallet or pokin’ ’em off a horse with a lance. That there Richard Cur the Lion was the best one, eh? Say, Mark, what did they call him Cur the Lion for? Curs and lions hain’t got much in common.”
“’Tain’t Cur,” says Mark, “though it does s-sound like it. You spell it C-o-e-u-r. The whole thing means ‘of the Lion Heart.’”
“Fine,” says Plunk. “That’s a bully name.”
“If you want a name,” says I, “I’ll give you one.”