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“Him!” cried Rufus. “He couldn’t hit a haystack a yard off, if he tried.”

“Then he didn’t do it? That’s all right. Why couldn’t you have said so at once? All down, Nigger? That makes two lies. Now call up the next.”

“Henry the First, surnamed Beauclerk, never smiled again after his son was lost, and died of a surfeit of lampreys,” read the prince.

“Oh, those lampreys!” groaned Henry; “I am perfectly sick of them. I assure you, my lords and gentlemen, they were no more lampreys–“

“No, not after you’d done supper,” growled Rufus.

“In that case, William,” retorted Beauclerk, “I should have said `there,’ and not `they.’ But I do assure you, gentlemen, I never saw a lamprey in my life; and as for smiling again,” added he, in quite an apologetic way, “I did it often, when nobody was by; really I did.”

“Are you sure?” asked the judge. “Show us how you did it.”

Whereupon Henry the First favoured the court with a fascinating leer, which left no doubt on any one’s mind that he had been falsely accused.

So two more lies were set down against me; and the Black Prince called over the next.

“`Stephen usurped the throne on Henry’s death.'”

“Quite right, quite right,” said Matilda; “perfectly correct.”

“`Matilda, after a civil war, in which her bad temper made her many enemies–‘”

“Oh you story!” exclaimed the empress. “Oh! you wicked young man!”

“Address the judge, please,” said Henry the Eighth.

“Oh, you wicked young man,” repeated the empress, turning to the bench; “I’d like to scratch you, I would!”

“Don’t do that,” said Henry: “I get quite enough of that at home, I assure you. Anyhow, Nigger can chalk it down a lie for you, eh?”

“And one for me, too, please,” said Stephen. “How can a fellow usurp what belongs to him?”

“Give it up,” said Coeur de Lion. “Ask another.”

“Silence in the court,” cried the judge. “Put it down, Nigger, and for mercy sake drive on, or we shall be here all night.”

“`Henry the Second murdered Thomas a Becket, and was served right by having a family of bad sons,'” read the usher.

“That’s nice!” said Henry, advancing. “Bad sons, indeed! Never had a better lot in all my life. Really, my lord, that ought to count for four lies right off. The idea of calling my Johnny a bad boy. Why, my lord, he was his father’s own boy. You’ve only to look at him; and if he was a bit of a romp, why, so were you and I in our day.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Henry the Eighth severely. “But what about Becket?”

“Ah, well, there was a little accident, I believe, about him, and he got hurt. But I assure you I never touched him; in fact, I was a hundred miles away at the time. I’ll prove an alibi if you like.”

“No, no,” said the judge; “that is quite sufficient. Chalk down two, Nigger: one for Becket and one for the bad family. How many does that come to?”

“That’s eight,” said the Black Prince. “All right. We only want two more. Go on.”

“`Richard the First, surnamed the Lion Heart, was the strongest and bravest man in England, and won many glorious battles in the Holy Land.'”

“Hullo, I say,” said the judge. “That’s pitching it just a little strong, isn’t it? What have you got to say to that, Dicky?”

“Seems pretty square,” said Richard modestly. “He doesn’t say what a good dentist I was, though. My! the dozens I used to pull out; and–oh, I say–look here, he says nothing about Blondel, and the tune I composed. That’s far more important than the Crusades. It was an andante in F minor, you know, and–“

“That’ll do, that’ll do, Dicky. We’ve heard that before,” interrupted the judge. “Score him down half a lie, Nigger, and call up Johnny.”