st of them),
"never mind the young men! Turn thy eyes on a middle-aged autocrat, who
has been considered not ill-looking in his time."

"Oh, sir! what will her Majesty say?" cries Betsinda.

"Her Majesty!" laughs the monarch. "Her Majesty be hanged. Am I not
Autocrat of Paflagonia? Have I not blocks, ropes, axes, hangmen--ha?
Runs not a river by my palace wall? Have I not sacks to sew up wives
withal? Say but the word, that thou wilt be mine own,--your mistress
straightway in a sack is sewn, and thou the sharer of my heart and
throne."

When Giglio heard these atrocious sentiments, he forgot the respect
usually paid to Royalty, lifted up the warming-pan, and knocked down the
King as flat as a pancake; after which, Master Giglio took to his
heels and ran away, and Betsinda went off screaming, and the Queen,
Gruffanuff, and the Princess, all came out of their rooms. Fancy their
feelings on beholding their husband, father, sovereign, in this posture!

X. HOW KING VALOROSO WAS IN A DREADFUL PASSION.

As soon as the coals began to burn him, the King came to himself
and stood up. "Ho! my captain of the guards!" his Majesty exclaimed,
stamping his royal feet with rage. O piteous spectacle! the King's nose
was bent quite crooked by the blow of Prince Giglio! His Majesty ground
his teeth with rage. "Hedzoff," he said, taking a death-warrant out of
his dressing-gown pocket, "Hedzoff, good Hedzoff, seize upon the Prince.
Thou'lt find him in his chamber two pair up. But now he dared, with
sacrilegious hand, to strike the sacred night-cap of a king--Hedzoff,
and floor me with a warming-pan! Away, no more demur, the villain dies!
See it be done, or else,--h'm--ha!--h'm! mind thine own eyes!" And
followed by the ladies, and lifting up the tails of his dressing-gown,
the King entered his own apartment.

Captain Hedzoff was very much affected, having a sincere love for
Giglio. "Poor, poor Giglio!" he said, the tears rolling over his manly
face, and dripping down his moustachios; "my noble young Prince, is it
my hand must lead thee to death?"

"Lead him to fiddlestick, Hedzoff," said a female voice. It was
Gruffanuff, who had come out in her dressing-gown when she heard the
noise. "The King said you were to hang the Prince. Well, hang the
Prince."

"I don't understand you," says Hedzoff, who was not a very clever man.

"You Gaby! he didn't say WHICH Prince," says Gruffanuff.

"No; he didn't say which, certainly," said Hed