The Bug Bears were all so startled that they did not make a move and before they knew it Billy had pulled out his air-pump and was beating them all about the head--all but Little Bug Bear, who scuttled out of the door at the first move Billy made. "Oh! oh! oh! ouch! ouch! ouch!" cried the Bug Bears, running about and trying to get to the door, "let us go--let us go." And in a minute Billy was all alone. "So that's all Bug Bears amount to," he said; "they will never frighten me again." And walking leisurely out of the door he jumped up and away from Derby Town and the Bug Bears forever. CHAPTER XII. O'FUDGE The next time Billy alighted he examined his suit with great care, for fear his adventures with the Bug Bears had strained the patch over the puncture, but to his great delight he found that it held as tightly as ever. As it happened, he had stopped on a dusty highway just outside the gates of a city. We will call it a city because Billy later learned that its inhabitants did so, but to Billy's gaze it seemed but a collection of the poorest huts. [Illustration: _The Herald._] And as he stood punching and pulling and examining his suit a party of horsemen and horsewomen rode up. A few feet in advance of the rest of the party rode a tattered and torn individual on a lame horse. In his hand he carried a battered old fish horn on which he occasionally blew a feeble blast; this he followed by calling in a voice loud enough to make up for the wheeziness of his horn, "Out of the way, out of the way O--the King rides." "What if he does?" said Billy to himself. "I do too when I can catch behind a street car." "Out of the way," cried the man, pulling up his horse, "out of the way, boy." "I'm not in the way, there's plenty of room for you to pass, and I don't want to climb down into the ditch," said Billy. "But the King passes--out of the way." "Well, I'll be in that town by the time he comes along." "He is here, varlet." "Where?" "That noble looking gentleman in rich raiment--true, a trifle faded--but rich--he that rides alone." "Do you mean the one on the blind mare?" "True, the mare is blind, but that is her misfortune not her fault--she comes of fine stock. Yes, that is our great and noble Comic Paper Irish King O'Fudge." "A Comic Paper Irish King," said Billy. "Is he Irish?" "No," said the Horn Man, "not really Irish, he's the kind of Irish they have in Comic Papers." [Illustration: _O'Fudge, the Comic Paper Irish King._] Billy was bewildered--he looked from the King to his company, from the company to the Horn Man and then back again to the King. Such a faded, worn, torn, uncut, unshaven and unkempt crowd he had never seen outside of a company of beggars. And such nags as they bestrode. The lame, the halt, and the blind were all represented among their horses, while donkeys and mules in all states of decrepitude carried others. "So that is the King?" said Billy.