riend, I am not sorry to see
you; though Buckingham, who I suppose is the purveyor of this jest, hath
served us up but a stale one."

"Will your Majesty honour me with one moment's attention?" said Hudson.

"Assuredly, my good friend," said the King. "Old acquaintances are
springing up in every quarter to-night; and our leisure can hardly be
better employed than in listening to them.--It was an idle trick of
Buckingham," he added, in a whisper to Ormond, "to send the poor thing
hither, especially as he was to-day tried for the affair of the plot.
At any rate he comes not to ask protection from us, having had the rare
fortune to come off _Plot-free_. He is but fishing, I suppose, for some
little present or pension."

The little man, precise in Court etiquette, yet impatient of the
King's delaying to attend to him, stood in the midst of the floor, most
valorously pawing and prancing, like a Scots pony assuming the airs of
a war-horse, waving meanwhile his little hat with the tarnished feather,
and bowing from time to time, as if impatient to be heard.

"Speak on, then, my friend," said Charles; "if thou hast some poetical
address penned for thee, out with it, that thou mayst have time to
repose these flourishing little limbs of thine."

"No poetical speech have I, most mighty Sovereign," answered the dwarf;
"but, in plain and most loyal prose, I do accuse, before this company,
the once noble Duke of Buckingham of high treason!"

"Well spoken, and manfully--Get on, man," said the King, who never
doubted that this was the introduction to something burlesque or witty,
not conceiving that the charge was made in solemn earnest.

A great laugh took place among such courtiers as heard, and among many
who did not hear, what was uttered by the dwarf; the former entertained
by the extravagant emphasis and gesticulation of the little champion,
and the others laughing not the less loud that they laughed for
example's sake, and upon trust.

"What matter is there for all this mirth?" said he, very
indignantly--"Is it fit subject for laughing, that I, Geoffrey Hudson,
Knight, do, before King and nobles, impeach George Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham, of high treason?"

"No subject of mirth, certainly," said Charles, composing his features;
"but great matter of wonder.--Come, cease this mouthing, and prancing,
and mummery.--If there be a jest, come out with it, man; and if not,
even get thee to the beaffet, and drink a cup of wine