pruce and fresh?"

"I am going to the king for what he owes me."

"Oh! take me with thee!"

Drakestail said to himself, "One can't have too many friends." Aloud
says he: "I will, but then with your battalion to drag along, you will
soon be tired. Make yourself quite small, go into my throat--get into my
gizzard, and I will carry you."

"By Jove! that's a good idea!" says comrade Wasp's-nest.

And left file! he takes the same road to join the others with all his
party. There was not much room, but by closing up a bit they managed.
And Drakestail is off again singing.

He arrived thus at the capital, and threaded his way straight up the
High Street, still running and singing, "Quack, quack, quack, when shall
I get my money back?" to the great astonishment of the good folks, till
he came to the king's palace.

He strikes with the knocker: "Toc! toc!"

"Who is there?" asks the porter, putting his head out of the wicket.

"'Tis I, Drakestail. I wish to speak to the king."

"Speak to the king! That's easily said. The king is dining, and will not
be disturbed."

"Tell him that it is I, and I have come he well knows why."

The porter shuts his wicket and goes up to say it to the king, who was
just sitting down to dinner with a napkin round his neck, and all his
ministers.

"Good, good!" said the king, laughing. "I know what it is! Make him come
in, and put him with the turkeys and chickens."

The porter descends.

"Have the goodness to enter."

"Good!" says Drakestail to himself, "I shall now see how they eat at
court."

"This way, this way," says the porter. "One step further. There, there
you are."

"How? what? in the poultry-yard?"

Fancy how vexed Drakestail was!

"Ah! so that's it," says he. "Wait! I will compel you to receive me.
Quack, quack, quack, when shall I get my money back?" But turkeys and
chickens are creatures who don't like people that are not as themselves.
When they saw the new-comer and how he was made, and when they heard him
crying too, they began to look black at him.

"What is it? What does he want?"

Finally they rushed at him all together, to overwhelm him with pecks.

"I am lost!" said Drakestail to himself, when by good luck he remembers
his comrade friend Fox, and he cries:

"Reynard, Reynard, come out of your earth,
Or Drakestail's life is of little worth."

Then friend Fox, who was only waiting for these words, hastens out,
throws himself on the