a screen, in large characters,
at the far end of the room, my recent examination paper, with all my
answers appended thereto! As I staggered back in terror, Henry laughed.

"Too late now," said he; "you've said `Not guilty', so you've got to be
tried--got to be tried. Eh, what? Now start away; begin at the top.
What's that he says about Alfred the Great? Where is Alf, by the way?"

"Oh," said Edward the Third, "he can't come. The fact is, they've taken
him and dressed him up as a French General, and he's so awfully busy, he
says, you'd better let his part of the thing slide."

"All serene!" replied Henry. "Lucky job for you, prisoner. I know what
a rage he'd be in over that toast-and-muffin story you've been telling
about him. He'd have done you brown, my boy, I can promise you! Never
mind. Now let's go on to the next. Read it out, Nigger."

Edward the Black Prince, who answered to this genial pet name,
accordingly read--

"`William the Conqueror was a cruel tyrant. He made many homes
desolate, and wrote Doomsday Book in the year 1087.'"

"There!" cried the Conqueror, coming to the rail of the guillotine and
striking it in a passion with his gauntlet; "what do you think of that?
_I_ wrote Doomsday Book! It's a lie. My lords and gentlemen of the
jury, I can stand anything else, but when he says I wrote Doomsday Book,
I say it's a lie, and I hope to see him hung!"

"Hanged," suggested Henry the First.

"All right, all right," said Henry the Eighth, "keep cool, and you shall
see him hung, and Henry shall see him hanged. We'll oblige all parties.
So you mean to say, Willie, you never did such a thing?"

"No, never; I hope I know my place better," said the Conqueror; "and I'm
surprised at you for asking such a question."

"Got that all down, Nigger?" asked the judge.

"Yes. Forge ahead!" said the Black Prince. "Now we come to the next,
`William the Second, surnamed Rufus, shot in the New Forest, by Walter
Tyrrell.'"

"Eh?" shouted Rufus, pushing his father aside, and coming to the front.
"What's that? Me shot by Walter? Me--"

"Do say _I_," suggested Henry the First.

The Red King rounded on him at once.

"Oh!" he cried, "it was you, then, was it? You're the one that did it!
I guessed as much! I knew you were at the bottom of it all along. What
do you think of that, my lords and gentlemen?"

"The thing is," drawled Edward the Second, "did Walter--"

"Order in the court!" cried Henry