Opposite to me sat the Count of Nullepart, or, as he was now called, the Marquis Fulano, a very singular title for a hidalgo of Spain. His circumstances appeared to be identical with my own. He also was encompassed by two royal princesses, one of whom had not a tooth--Heaven defend me for this candour!--and looked hardly a day less than ninety; while the other had an unfortunate malformation of the shoulders and a pair of eyes which glittered like those of a goshawk. As the Count of Nullepart insisted on speaking a rustic Spanish in a guttural voice that was quite foreign to his natural one, and as these royal ladies confined themselves to their mother tongue, the Count of Nullepart’s intercourse must have ranked next to my own. Yet, if the cheerful mirth of his countenance was a true index to his feelings upon the subject, his disappointment could not have galled him very deeply. In the course of that evening it was freely rumoured that the Marquis Fulano was none other than a near kinsman--some said the second son--of the King of France. Indeed, the laughter that his appearance and behaviour excited, and yet the high respect that was paid to them on every hand, was such as could never have been extended to the idiosyncrasies of a private person. From that hour to this neither Sir Richard Pendragon nor myself has ever been able to win such an amazing admission from the Count of Nullepart. But as he has never thought well in anywise to deny it, and as the demeanour of all at the French court was such as I have declared it to be, there is every reason to suppose that our comrade’s true degree was of this exalted nature. Sir Richard Pendragon was also in very singular case. Will you believe me, reader, when I inform you that this swaggerer, this maltreater of the truth, this robber of churches, this uncouth barbarian, had the King of France upon his left hand and the Queen upon his right? And so little was this ready-tongued adventurer abashed by the exalted position in which he found himself, that from the beginning of the meal he held the King in discourse, and handsomely retained the royal interest until it was concluded. What it was that Sir Richard Pendragon found to say to the Father of his People I know not. But if his conversation was inspired by the same disrespect for the sober verities as had distinguished it earlier in the day, I doubt not that the King’s majesty learned much that the wisest of his ministers had not dreamed that he should know.