that he could arrange a match for the king
that would make him richer than any king on any throne. The boy king was
becoming interested, and I guess dad would have had him married off all
right, if the king had not seen me take out a bag of candy and begin to
eat, when he said to me, "Come up here, Bub, and give me some of that."
Gosh, but I trembled like a leaf, but I went right up the steps of the
throne and handed him the bag, and said, "Help yourself, Bub." Well,
sir, the queerest thing happened. I had bought two pieces of candy
filled with cayenne pepper, for April fool, and the king handed the bag
to the master of ceremonies, a big Spaniard all covered over with gold
lace, and if you will believe me the king got one piece of the cayenne
pepper candy, and that spangled prime minister got the other, and the
king chewed his piece first, and he opened his mouth like a dog that has
picked up a hot boiled egg and he blew out his breath to cool his tongue
and said, "Whoosh," and strangled, and sputtered, and then the prime
minister he got his, and he yelled murder in Spanish, and the king
called for water, and put his hands on his stomach and had a cramp, and
the other man he tied himself up in a double bowknot, and called for
a priest, and the king said he would have to go to the chapel, and the
fellows who were guarding the king took him away, breathing hard, and
red in the face, and dad said to me, "What the bloody hell you trying to
do with the crowned heads? Cause you have poisoned the whole bunch, and
we better get out."

[Illustration: The king got one piece of the cayenne pepper candy 347]

So we went out of the palace while the king's retainers were filling him
with ice water. Well, they got the cayenne pepper out of him, because we
saw him at the bull fight in the afternoon, but for a while he had the
hottest box there ever was outside of a freight train, and if he lives
to be as old as Mr. Methuselah he will always remember his interview
with little Hennery. The bull fights ain't much. Bulls come in the
ring mad as wet hens, cause they stick daggers in them, and they bellow
around, and the Spaniards dodge and shake red rags at them, and after a
bull has ripped a mess of bowels out of a few horses, then a man with a
saber stabs the bull between the shoulders, and he drops dead, and the
crowd cheers the assassin of the bull, and they bring in another bull.
Well, sir, dad came mighty near his finish at the bull