"The parchment commission with a string round his belly!" explained Jorian, in answer to the young secretary's lifted eyebrow; "there he is, hiding behind the faggot-chest."
"Get on, Boris," quoth Jorian, from the settee on which he had thrown himself; "it is your turn to lie."
"Good!" says Boris. And did it as followeth:—
"We left our arms behind us——"
"Such as we could not carry," added Jorian under his breath. The secretary, a wise youth—full of the new learning and of talk concerning certain books printed on paper and bound all with one druck of a great machine like a cheese-press—held his pen suspended over the paper in doubt what to write.
"Do not mind him," said Boris. "I am dictating this report."
"Yes, my lord!" replied the secretary from behind his hand.
"We left our arms and armour behind us, and went out to make observations in the interest of your Highnesses' armies. Going down through the woods we saw many wild swine, exceeding fierce. But having no means of hunting these, we evaded them, all save one, which misfortunately met its death by falling against a spear in the hands of Captain Boris, and another, also of the male sex, shot dead by Jorian's pistol, which went off by accident as it was passing."
"I have already written that your arms were left at home, according to your direction," said the secretary, who was accustomed to criticise the composition of diplomatic reports.
"Pshaw!" growled Boris, bending his brow upon such superfluity of virtue; "a little thing like that will never be noticed. Besides, a man must carry something. We had no cannon or battering rams with us, therefore we were unarmed—to all intents and purposes, that is."