meant How-do-you-do,’ explained the Wart.
‘Ah, yes, How-de-do?’
They shook hands again.
‘Good afternoon’ said King Pellinore. ‘What do you think the weather looks like now?’
‘I think it looks like an anti-cyclone.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said the King. ‘An anti-cyclone. Well, I suppose I ought to be getting along.’
At this the King trembled very much, opened and shut his visor several times, coughed, wove his reins into a knot, exclaimed, ‘I beg your pardon?’ and showed signs of cantering away.
‘He is a white magician,’ said the Wart. ‘You need not be afraid of him. He is my best friend, your majesty, and in any case he generally gets his spells muddled up.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said King Pellinore. ‘A white magician, what? How small the world is, is it not? How-de-do?’
‘Hail’ said Merlyn.
‘Hail,’ said King Pellinore.
They shook hands for the third time.
‘I should not go away,’ said the wizard, ‘if I were you. Sir Grummore Grummursum is on the way to challenge you to a joust.’
‘No, you don’t say? Sir What-you-may-call-it coming here to challenge me to a joust?’
‘Assuredly.’
‘Good handicap man?’
‘I should think it would be an even match.’
‘Well, I must say,’ exclaimed the King, ‘it never hails but it pours.’
‘Hail,’ said Merlyn.
‘Hail,’ said King Pellinore.
‘Hail,’ said the Wart.
‘Now I really won’t shake hands with anybody else,’ announced the monarch. ‘We must assume that we have all met before.’
‘Is Sir Grummore really coming,’ inquired the Wart, hastily changing the subject, ‘to challenge King Pellinore to a battle?’
‘Look yonder,’ said Merlyn, and both of them looked in the direction of his outstretched finger.
Sir Grummore Grummursum was cantering up the clearing in full panoply of war. Instead of his ordinary helmet with a visor he was wearing the proper tilting-helm, which looked like a large coal-scuttle, and as he cantered he clanged.
He was singing his old school song:
We’ll tilt together.
Steady from crupper to poll,
And nothin’ in life shall sever
Our love for the dear old coll.
Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up, follow-up, follow-up,
Till the shield ring again and again
With the clanks of the clanky true men.
‘Goodness,’ exclaimed King Pellinore. ‘It’s about two months since I had a proper tilt, and last winter they put me up to eighteen. That was when they had the new handicaps.’
Sir Grummore had arrived while he was speaking, and had recognized the Wart.
‘Mornin’,’ said Sir Grummore. ‘You’re Sir Ector’s boy, ain’t you? And who’s that chap in the comic hat?’
‘That is my tutor,’ said the Wart hurriedly. ‘Merlyn, the magician.’
Sir Grummore looked at Merlyn – magicians were considered rather middle-class by the true jousting set in those days – and said distantly, ‘Ah, a magician. How-de-do?’
‘And this is King Pellinore,’ said the Wart. ‘Sir Grummore Grummursum – King Pellinore.’
‘How-de-do?’ inquired Sir Grummore.
‘Hail,’ said King Pellinore. ‘No, I mean it won’t hail, will it?’
‘Nice day,’ said Sir Grummore.
‘Yes, it is nice, isn’t it, what?’
‘Been questin’ today?’
‘Oh, yes, thank you. Always am questing, you know. After the Questing Beast.’
‘Interestin’ job, that, very.’
‘Yes, it is interesting. Would you like to see some fewmets?’
‘By Jove, yes. Like to see some fewmets.’
‘I have some better ones at home, but these are quite good, really.’
‘Bless my soul. So these are her fewmets.’
‘Yes, these are her fewmets.’
‘Interestin’ fewmets.’
‘Yes, they are interesting, aren’t they? Only you get tired of them,’ added King Pellinore.
‘Well, well. It’s a fine day, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is rather fine.’
‘Suppose we’d better have a joust, eh, what?’
‘Yes, I suppose we had better,’ said King Pellinore, ‘really.’
‘What shall we have it for?’
‘Oh, the usual, I suppose. Would one of you kindly help me on with my helm?’
They all three had to help him on eventually, for, what with the unscrewing of screws and the easing of nuts and bolts which the King had clumsily set on the wrong thread when getting up in a hurry that morning, it was quite a feat of engineering to get him out of his helmet and into his helm. The helm was an enormous thing like an oil drum, padded inside with two thicknesses of leather and three inches of straw.
As soon as they were ready, the two knights stationed themselves at each end of the clearing and then advanced to meet in the middle.
‘Fair knight,’ said King Pellinore, ‘I pray thee tell me thy name.’
‘That me regards,’ replied Sir Grummore, using the proper formula.
‘That is uncourteously said,’ said King Pellinore, ‘what? For no knight ne dreadeth for to speak his name openly, but for some reason of shame,’
‘Be that as it may, I choose that thou shalt not know my name as at this time, for no askin’.’
‘Then
