But it had not passed unobserved by the King himself or by those around him. Extinguished as he had appeared to be in his panoply of purple and ermine and embroidered scarlet, looking, as he had risen at the great table to drink his Champion’s health, for all the world like a little over-swaddled Greek icon elevated against a background of glittering stained glass, his diminutive Majesty had had an ear and an eye for everything within the longest range of either. His birdlike optics, bright as twin buttons sunk amid that pomp of raiment, had been fully cognisant of the little episode, and had watched the after-approach of his Champion with an unwinking interest, which had seemed to concentrate itself to such a challenging focus on the flushed face of the knight as he came near, that that doughty Paladin had fallen into confusion and had something botched the business of the toast that followed. However, he had managed, though crestfallen, to retire presently with sufficient aplomb and his perquisite of a golden beaker; and there for the moment the matter had ended. “Sir Charles Dymoke----” began Lord Halifax. “Who is dat man?” interrupted the King. “Vat is his title to the bost?” “It is claimed by him, sire,” answered the peer, “in his right of the Manor of Scrivelsby. The office was originally deputed, I understand, to Sir Richard de Marmyon by the Conqueror, and hath descended by virtue of that tenure to this day. Sir Charles is its legitimate representative.” “Well,” said the King, “broduce him before us.” “Why,” said the Marquis feebly, “that is the odd thing. Sir Charles is nowhere to be found.” The three Dutch mynheers uttered guttural sounds in their throats, and looked at one another and at the King significantly. His Majesty’s brows knotted. “Dat is very vonny,” he said. “Not to be vound, mein vrent?” “It has been ascertained, your Majesty,” said Lord Denby wearily--he was a picked white bone of a man, with no stomach and yet a perpetual stomach-ache, which naturally aggrieved him--“that Sir Charles rode, immediately after the ceremony, to the ‘Cock’ hostelry in Tothill Street, whence, having disencumbered himself of his panoply, he continued his way to the riding-school of one Dobney, near Islington, where he delivered up his horse and disappeared. Since when he has neither returned to his inn nor vouchsafed the least token of his existence.” The King considered the matter very glumpily within himself. It appeared a trifle; yet trifles might easily be underestimated in the existing state of things. The incident was something or nothing--a mere meaningless frolic, or a challenge to his title bearing a certain significance. The land swarmed with Jacobites of more or less power and prominence. What if one of them were to meet and defeat his Champion? How, in that event, would his claim stand? What was the procedure? It was an odd contingency, and he put it rather acridly to my Lord Privy Seal.