But I explained it to the king myself. I said it was done with a
dynamite bomb. This information did him no damage, because it
left him as intelligent as he was before. However, it was a noble
miracle, in his eyes, and was another settler for Merlin. I thought
it well enough to explain that this was a miracle of so rare a sort
that it couldn't be done except when the atmospheric conditions
were just right. Otherwise he would be encoring it every time we
had a good subject, and that would be inconvenient, because I
hadn't any more bombs along.



CHAPTER XXVIII

DRILLING THE KING

On the morning of the fourth day, when it was just sunrise, and we
had been tramping an hour in the chill dawn, I came to a resolution:
the king _must_ be drilled; things could not go on so, he must be
taken in hand and deliberately and conscientiously drilled, or we
couldn't ever venture to enter a dwelling; the very cats would know
this masquerader for a humbug and no peasant. So I called a halt
and said:

"Sire, as between clothes and countenance, you are all right, there
is no discrepancy; but as between your clothes and your bearing,
you are all wrong, there is a most noticeable discrepancy. Your
soldierly stride, your lordly port--these will not do. You stand
too straight, your looks are too high, too confident. The cares