“These good souls can see we are on the way to King Lewie,” said he. “I am perfectly sure they mistake me for the Emperor Maximilian, although I have five inches the better of my old crony in the matter of perpendicularity, and at least six in the matter of circumference. Still they cannot be expected to be informed of it. And prithee, good Don Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas, do you observe how all eyes are for my Persian cockado? I doubt not it looks very brave with court livery; and it will afford me not the least surprise if King Lewie, who is a good fellow, comes to adopt it at the court of France.” Just as the English giant had concluded this speech, a little old woman came up behind him and plucked him eagerly by the cloak. “Good Master Tumbler,” said she, “if you will stand on your head I will give you a groat; and if you will swallow your sword you shall have a new franc piece.” Sir Richard Pendragon plucked his cloak away fiercely from the old creature and walked on with his head in the air, as though he had not heard her. During the next moment, however, an unmannerly urchin had thrown a cake of mud at the Persian cockado. By the time we had come to the gates of the Louvre, the press was so great that it had become difficult to proceed in it. Indeed, according to the Count of Nullepart’s computation, and he seemed to derive much pleasure from assessing it, it could not have been less than a thousand persons. To the astonishment of our leader, when we came before the gates of the palace, the soldiers of the King’s Guard, who kept the royal entrance, declined to allow us to pass. And when Sir Richard Pendragon threatened peremptorily to cut off the ears of their captain, the prospect of our gaining admittance did not seem to improve. For some reason, which I cannot explain, the attitude of the King’s Guard seemed greatly to please the mob that was pressing around us. Sir Richard Pendragon was fain to produce the cartel of our mistress duly sealed and inscribed: “To Lewis Our Nephew in His Court at Paris, by the hands of Our Good Servants.” Yet even this document went without effect, if only for the reason, as the Count of Nullepart assured us, that the captain of the King’s Guard was unable so much as to decipher the superscription. In the next minute there was almost a riot in the open street. The English giant, seeming to detect cries of derision arising about him, turned to the ever-increasing multitude and observing a low fellow that was near him in the act of making an insulting grimace, he made no more to do, but lifted him up bodily, and flung him like a sack of flour upon the heads of the people. Upon this, mud and stones began to fly past us. And a missile having struck Sir Richard Pendragon upon the cheek, he drew his sword and began to lay about him lustily with the flat of it.