?"

"No, good your Majesty, my punishment was appointed for this day, and
peradventure it may be annulled, as unbefitting the season of mourning
that is come upon us; I know not, and so have made bold to come hither
and remind your Grace about your gracious promise to intercede in my
behalf--"

"With the master? To save thee thy whipping?"

"Ah, thou dost remember!"

"My memory mendeth, thou seest. Set thy mind at ease--thy back shall go
unscathed--I will see to it."

"Oh, thanks, my good lord!" cried the boy, dropping upon his knee again.
"Mayhap I have ventured far enow; and yet--"

Seeing Master Humphrey hesitate, Tom encouraged him to go on, saying he
was "in the granting mood."

"Then will I speak it out, for it lieth near my heart. Sith thou art no
more Prince of Wales but King, thou canst order matters as thou wilt,
with none to say thee nay; wherefore it is not in reason that thou wilt
longer vex thyself with dreary studies, but wilt burn thy books and turn
thy mind to things less irksome. Then am I ruined, and mine orphan
sisters with me!"

"Ruined? Prithee how?"

"My back is my bread, O my gracious liege! if it go idle, I starve. An'
thou cease from study mine office is gone thou'lt need no whipping-boy.
Do not turn me away!"

Tom was touched with this pathetic distress. He said, with a right royal
burst of generosity--

"Discomfort thyself no further, lad. Thine office shall be permanent in
thee and thy line for ever." Then he struck the boy a light blow on the
shoulder with the flat of his sword, exclaiming, "Rise, Humphrey Marlow,
Hereditary Grand Whipping-Boy to the Royal House of England! Banish
sorrow--I will betake me to my books again, and study so ill that they
must in justice treble thy wage, so mightily shall the business of thine
office be augmented."

The grateful Humphrey responded fervidly--

"Thanks, O most noble master, this princely lavishness doth far surpass
my most distempered dreams of fortune. Now shall I be happy all my days,
and all the house of Marlow after me."

Tom had wit enough to perceive that here was a lad who could be useful to
him. He encouraged Humphrey to talk, and he was nothing loath. He was
delighted to believe that he was helping in Tom's 'cure'; for always, as
soon as he had finished calling back to Tom's diseased mind the various
particulars of his experiences and adventures in the royal school-room
and elsewhere about the palace, he not