When the Sicilian Char-woman had finished the narration of her truly wonderful experiences, and while the army were yet applauding her, the King stepped down from his chair, and taking the good woman by the hand, explained to her the object of their great expedition. 'And now,' said the astute old monarch in conclusion, 'powerful
as we undoubtedly are, and as you can see for yourself that we are, we have yet one weakness, and that weakness is, that we cannot boast of a single char-woman of any description within our ranks. It has occurred to us, in listening to your story, that if you are able, as I have no doubt you will be, to obtain a good character from your last place, that we shall be delighted to engage you as an assistant to the amiable Boadicea in her attendance upon my person.'
'Fiddlesticks,' snapped the abrupt woman, 'look after your person indeed! Look after it yourself,' and the strange creature walked off. Unwilling to lose such a treasure, the King called after her, and explained that if he had offended her it was quite unintentionally, and offered her any post she would like to fill, of course providing that it had not already been filled, in his army.
'Now you are talking reasonably,' replied the quickly mollified creature. 'Well, as you are so very kind, I don't mind being the flag-bearer.'
'But I am really afraid we have no flag,' objected the King.
'Oh, we'll soon settle that little difficulty,' replied the woman. And she at once removed her apron and snatching from the astonished Scout the staff he usually carried with him, she tied the apron thereto by its two strings and waved it proudly in the air three or four times, at each time jumping as high as she could.
Every one cheered in their delight at the readiness of the good woman, and congratulated each other cordially on this interesting addition to their forces.
The King now stood up in his chair, and after quieting the general excitement by ringing his bell, he thus addressed his troops:—
'My dear old boys and girls, although, no doubt, I appear to you a very fine man indeed, with a good appetite and fairly well covered for my time of life, I am not quite the man I should be. You must know that in my early babyhood I was a victim to the wicked carelessness of the royal cook. One morning this thoughtless creature left an unboiled parsnip on the garden path (had it been boiled and soft, my fate had been different perhaps) while chatting with a friend at the tradesmen's entrance. As ill luck would have it, I was at the time playing on the palace roof, to which I had climbed through the nursery chimney, and, childlike, was gazing curiously at a strange bird flying overhead, when I overbalanced and fell from the roof right on to the parsnip on the garden path, which, as you will guess, hurt me very severely indeed.'