A grey sombre figure suddenly strode into the brilliant flower-draped pavilion; a slouch hat made the figure look very sinister, and a sword clanked at his side.
The figure strode on and scowled darkly at King Richard sitting gracefully upon his charger. "Ho! ho!" called the sombre man in a loud voice. "Ho! ho!" he repeated with a mirthless laugh.
King Richard neither moved not took the faintest notice.
On strode the figure towards King Charles seated upon his charger, and who was regarding the children with the pleasantest expression possible.
"Ha!" shouted the figure as it strode along. "Ha! I say, Ha!"
King Charles still smiled gravely and took no notice. The striding figure that shouted "Ha!" might never have uttered a word for all the notice King Charles took of him.
"Ha!" shouted the figure for the last time.
Then, seeing that nobody took any notice of him, the figure looked glum, and folding his arms espied the Griffin peacefully asleep, the white dinner napkin covering his fond, foolish face, waiting to be awakened, so the Griffin fondly hoped—awakened by a gentle tap as Beauty. The Griffin's slumber seemed to annoy the sombre man intensely, for without uttering a syllable he drew his sword and smote the Griffin hard upon the red flannel paws that were folded with a view to pictorial effect beside the Griffin's covered face.
There was a shriek of anguish, and the Griffin awoke.
The pain the Griffin suffered from the blow upon his tender paws was as nothing compared to the blow to the Griffin's feelings when he realised that his ineffably touching picture of the Sleeping Beauty had been spoiled for the evening. A great surge of sudden hatred swept over the Griffin at the swaggering intruder who had dared to strike him, and simultaneously the Griffin remembered something he had once heard said by a man in blue wearing a helmet close to where he always stood in Fleet Street.