lunteer, he asked me to let
him come along in my protection, and see the crowds and the excitement.
Well, we arrived and saw the torches filing out at the Castle, and ran
there, and the governor had him seized, along with four more, and
he begged to be let off, and I begged for his place, and at last the
governor allowed me to join, but wouldn't let Noel off, because he was
disgusted with him, he was such a cry-baby. Yes, and much good he'll
do the King's service; he'll eat for six and run for sixteen. I hate a
pygmy with half a heart and nine stomachs!"

"Why, this is very surprising news to me, and I am sorry and
disappointed to hear it. I thought he was a very manly fellow."

The Paladin gave me an outraged look, and said:

"I don't see how you can talk like that, I'm sure I don't. I don't see
how you could have got such a notion. I don't dislike him, and I'm not
saying these things out of prejudice, for I don't allow myself to have
prejudices against people. I like him, and have always comraded with him
from the cradle, but he must allow me to speak my mind about his faults,
and I am willing he shall speak his about mine, if I have any. And, true
enough, maybe I have; but I reckon they'll bear inspection--I have that
idea, anyway. A manly fellow! You should have heard him whine and wail
and swear, last night, because the saddle hurt him. Why didn't the
saddle hurt me? Pooh--I was as much at home in it as if I had been born
there. And yet it was the first time I was ever on a horse. All those
old soldiers admired my riding; they said they had never seen anything
like it. But him--why, they had to hold him on, all the time."

An odor as of breakfast came stealing through the wood; the Paladin
unconsciously inflated his nostrils in lustful response, and got up and
limped painfully away, saying he must go and look to his horse.

At bottom he was all right and a good-hearted giant, without any harm
in him, for it is no harm to bark, if one stops there and does not bite,
and it is no harm to be an ass, if one is content to bray and not kick.
If this vast structure of brawn and muscle and vanity and foolishness
seemed to have a libelous tongue, what of it? There was no malice behind
it; and besides, the defect was not of his own creation; it was the work
of Noel Rainguesson, who had nurtured it, fostered it, built it up and
perfected it, for the entertainment he got out of it. His careless light
heart had to have someb