"Well," I said, shrugging my shoulders, "I take that for granted." I began to think that the traveller was demented.
"And a king?"
"Yes, I suppose so," I answered contemptuously. "I never heard it doubted."
He leaned towards me, and spoke with the most eager impressiveness. "A man—and a king!" he said. "Yet neither a manly king, nor a kingly man! You take me?"
"Yes," I said impatiently. "I see what you mean.
"Neither a kingly man, nor a manly king!" he repeated with solemn gusto. "You take me clearly, I think?"
I had no stomach for further fooleries, and I was about to answer him with some sharpness—though I could not for the life of me tell whether he was mad or an eccentric when a harsh voice shrieked in my ear, "Bob!" and in a twinkling a red figure appeared bounding and whirling in the middle of the kitchen; now springing into the air until its head touched the rafters, now eddying round and round the floor in the giddiest gyrations. At the first glance, startled by the voice in my ear, I recoiled; but a second disclosing what it was, and the secret of our alarm outside, I masked my movement; and when the man brought his performance to a sudden stop, and falling on one knee in an attitude of exaggerated respect held out his cap, I was ready for him.
"Why, you knave," I said, "you should be whipped, not rewarded. Who gave you leave to play pranks on travellers?"
He looked at me with a droll smile on his round merry face, which at its gravest was a thing to laugh at. "Let him whip who is scared," he said, with roguish impudence. "Or if there is to be whipping, my lord, whip Louis XI."
Thus reminded, I turned to the solemn traveller; but my eyes had no sooner met his than he twisted his visage into so wry a smile—if smile it could be called—that wherever there was a horse collar he must have won the prize. To hide my amusement, I asked them what they were. "Mountebanks?" I said curtly.