m service
to obtain advances. These latter had lost no time, for greed is quite as
eager as hate, and carried the matter at once to the king. What they
desired was that the case should be decided by the monarch himself, and
not by his chancellor, or a judge appointed for the purpose. The judge
would be nearly certain to condemn the citizen, and to confiscate
whatever he could lay hands on. The king might pardon, and would be
content with a part only, where his ministers would grasp all.

These friends succeeded in their object; the king, who hated all
judicial affairs because they involved the trouble of investigation,
shrugged his shoulders at the request, and would not have granted it had
it not come out that the citizen's servant had declared him to be an
incapable commander. At this the king started. "We are, indeed, fallen
low," said he, "when a miserable trader's knave calls us incapable. We
will see this impudent rascal." He accordingly ordered that the prisoner
should be brought before him after dinner.

Felix was led inside the entrenchment, unbound, and commanded to stand
upright. There was a considerable assembly of the greater barons anxious
to see the trial of the money-lender, who, though present, was kept
apart from Felix lest the two should arrange their defence. The king was
sleeping on a couch outside the booth in the shade; he was lying on his
back breathing loudly with open mouth. How different his appearance to
the time when he sat on his splendid charger and reviewed his knights! A
heavy meal had been succeeded by as heavy a slumber. No one dared to
disturb him; the assembly moved on tiptoe and conversed in whispers. The
experienced divined that the prisoners were certain to be condemned, for
the king would wake with indigestion, and vent his uneasy sensations
upon them. Full an hour elapsed before the king awoke with a snort and
called for a draught of water. How Felix envied that draught! He had
neither eaten nor drunk since the night previous; it was a hot day, and
his tongue was dry and parched.

The citizen was first accused; he denied any treasonable designs or
expressions whatever; as for the other prisoner, till the time he was
arrested he did not even know he had been in his service. He was some
stroller whom his grooms had incautiously engaged, the lazy scoundrels,
to assist them. He had never even spoken to him; it the knave told the
truth he must acknowledge this.

"How now," said t