rees."

"So you judge it to be a lemon. And what do you make of it, di Paz?" the
King inquired.

The Marquess was a statesman who took few chances. He walked to the edge
of the pool, and looked at the thing before committing himself: and he
came back smiling. "Ah, sire, you have indeed contrived a cunning sermon
against hasty judgment, for, while the tree is a lemon-tree, the thing
that floats beneath it is an orange."

"So you, Marquess, judge it to be an orange. And what do you make of it,
Count of Poictesme?" the King asks now.

If di Paz took few chances, Manuel took none at all. He waded into the
pool, and fetched out the thing which floated there. "King," says big
Dom Manuel, sagely blinking his bright pale eyes, "it is the half of an
orange."

Said the King: "Here is a man who is not lightly deceived by the vain
shows of this world, and who values truth more than dry shoes. Count
Manuel, you shall have your troops, and you others must wait until you
have acquired Count Manuel's powers of judgment, which, let me tell you,
are more valuable than any fief I have to give."

So when the spring had opened, Manuel went into Poictesme at the head of
a very creditable army, and Dom Manuel summoned Duke Asmund to surrender
all that country. Asmund, who was habitually peevish under the puckerel
curse, refused with opprobrious epithets, and the fighting began.

Manuel had, of course, no knowledge of generalship, but King Ferdinand
sent the Conde de Tohil Vaca as Manuel's lieutenant. Manuel now figured
imposingly in jeweled armor, and the sight of his shield bearing the
rampant stallion and the motto _Mundus vult decipi_ became in battle a
signal for the more prudent among his adversaries to distinguish
themselves in some other part of the conflict. It was whispered by
backbiters that in counsel and in public discourse Dom Manuel sonorously
repeated the orders and opinions provided by Tohil Vaca: either way, the
official utterances of the Count of Poictesme roused everywhere the
kindly feeling which one reserves for old friends, so that no harm was
done.

To the contrary, Dom Manuel now developed an invaluable gift for public
speaking, and in every place which he conquered and occupied he made
powerful addresses to the surviving inhabitants before he had them
hanged, exhorting all right-thinking persons to crush the military
autocracy of Asmund. Besides, as Manuel pointed out, this was a struggle
such as the world h