"H'm," grunted Lionel, "thy riddles be as stale as Michaelmas mutton. I can answer them all."
"So—canst thou, young shuttle-brain?" cried the archer, "then, by the mass, thou shalt. Answer now, answer," he demanded, as he tripped up young Lionel's feet and pinned him to the ground with a pikestaff, "answer, or I will wash thy knowing face in my sack-leavings. Why doth a cow lie down?"
"Faith, because she cannot sit," lazily answered Lionel.
"Hear the lad! He doth know it, really. Well—why is it not wise to give alms to a blind man?" demanded Humfrey.
"Because," responded the boy, "even if thou didst, he would be glad could he see thee hanged—as would I also!"
"Thou young knave! Now—how many calves' tails will it take to reach the moon?"
"O Humfrey, ease up thy pikestaff, man; I can barely fetch my breath—how many? Why, one,—if it be long enough," and, wriggling from his captor, the nimble Lionel tripped him up in turn, and, in sheer delight at his discomfiture, turned a back somersault and landed almost on the toes of two unhelmeted knights, who came from the inner pavilion of the royal tent.
"Why, how now, young tumble-foot—dost thou take this for a mummer's booth, that thou dost play thy pranks so closely to thy betters?" a quick voice demanded, and in much shame and confusion Lionel withdrew himself hastily from the royal feet of his "most dread sovereign and lord," King Henry the Fourth, of England.
"Pardon, my Liege," he stammered, "I did but think to stretch my stiffened legs."
"So; thou art tent-weary, too," said the king; and then asked: "And where learn'dst thou that hand-spring?"