THE ROYAL LION AND UNICORN.
A DIALOGUE.
“GROUND ARMS!”—Birdcage Walk.
LION.—So! how do you feel now?
UNICORN.—Considerably relieved. Though you can’t imagine the stiffness of my neck and legs. Let me see, how long is it since we relieved the griffins?
LION.—An odd century or two, but never mind that. For the first time, we have laid down our charge—have got out of our state attitudes, and may sit over our pot and pipe at ease.
UNICORN.—What a fate is ours! Here have we, in our time, been compelled to give the patronage of our countenance to all sorts of rascality—have been forced to support robbery, swindling, extortion—but it won’t do to think of—give me the pot. Oh! dear, it had suited better with my conscience, had I been doomed to draw a sand-cart!
LION.—Come, come, no unseemly affectation. You, at the best, are only a fiction—a quadruped lie.
UNICORN.—I know naturalists dispute my existence, but if, as you unkindly say, I am only a fiction, why should I have been selected as a supporter of the royal arms?