But the guard would not.
The lad then seized him by the collar and flung him against the wall so that it creaked; and then he walked straight in to the King, who sat in his parlor with his seven professors about him. Their faces were long and thin, and they looked like puny, sickly persons about to die. They were sitting with their heads on one side, meditating and staring at the floor.
Then one of them, who looked up, asked the lad in ordinary language: "Who are you?"
"A suitor," said the lad.
"Do you want to try for the Princess's hand?"
"Well, that's about it!" said the lad.
"Have you lost your wits? There have been princes and counts and barons and parsons and doctors and learned persons here, and all of them have gone headless away; so you had better turn about and get away while your head is on your shoulders," he said.
"Don't trouble yourself on that account, but rather think of the head on your own shoulders," said the lad. "You look after yours, and I'll take care of mine! So just begin and let me hear how much wit you have got, for I don't think you look so very clever," he said.
The first professor then began a long harangue of gibberish; and when he had finished the second went on; and then the third; and in this way they continued till at length it was the turn of the seventh. The lad did not understand a single word of it all, but he didn't lose courage for all that. He only nodded his approval to all of it.