The King was delighted by the change in Manuel's looks, and said that experience and maturity were fine things to be suggested by the appearance of a nobleman in Manuel's position. But, a pest! as for giving him any troops with which to conquer Poictesme, that was quite another matter. The King needed his own soldiers for his own ends, which necessitated the immediate capture of Cordova. Meanwhile here were the Prince de Gâtinais and the Marquess di Paz, who also had come with this insane request, the one for soldiers to help him against the Philistines, and the other against the Catalans.
"Everybody to whom I ever granted a fief seems to need troops nowadays," the King grumbled, "and if any one of you had any judgment whatever you would have retained your lands once they were given you."
"Our deficiencies, sire," says the young Prince de Gâtinais, with considerable spirit, "have not been altogether in judgment, but rather in the support afforded us by our liege-lord."
This was perfectly true; but inasmuch as such blunt truths are not usually flung at a king and a saint, now Ferdinand's thin brows went up.
"Do you think so?" said the King. "We must see about it. What is that, for example?"
He pointed to the pool by which the lemon-trees were watered, and the Prince glanced at the yellow object afloat in this pool. "Sire," said de Gâtinais, "it is a lemon which has fallen from one of the trees."
"So you judge it to be a lemon. And what do you make of it, di Paz?" the King inquired.
The Marquess was a statesman who took few chances. He walked to the edge of the pool, and looked at the thing before committing himself: and he came back smiling. "Ah, sire, you have indeed contrived a cunning sermon against hasty judgment, for, while the tree is a lemon-tree, the thing that floats beneath it is an orange."
"So you, Marquess, judge it to be an orange. And what do you make of it, Count of Poictesme?" the King asks now.
If di Paz took few chances, Manuel took none at all. He waded into the pool, and fetched out the thing which floated there. "King," says big Dom Manuel, sagely blinking his bright pale eyes, "it is the half of an orange."