“Are you stark mad, woman?” said the petulant voice from the pillows. “The King commands you; give them up to him at once. Give them up to the King at once, d’ye hear, or ’fore God! I will make you.” “Never, Harry!” said his wife. Her lord struggled to get out of his bed, as if himself to wrest them from her hands. But he was powerless to move. He flopped and wriggled about in a piteous manner, like a live fish in the sand. The King laughed. “Hush! my dear lad,” he said, “lie quiet. Never grow peremptory with a woman, never force her. Believe us, it is but a waste of energy. Be easy with ’em, my good Farnham, be easy with ’em. However, I think we will call for the landlord.” The King opened the door of the chamber, and called down the stairs for Gamaliel Hooker. Within a minute the landlord came fussing and puffing upwards, his rosy gills inflamed by exertion, and an execrable humility oozing out of his face. The change in his demeanour from an hour before was so entirely ludicrous, that Charles clapped his hands to his ribs when he saw him, and laughed till a stitch came into his side. “There never was so unctuous a rogue in the world before,” said the King. “What a double-chinned, great paunched, incomparable old knave of an innkeeper it is to be sure! Pray do not crawl like a worm, my good Boniface, an it chafes your belly. Stand upon your legs, good fellow; your appearance is become too beastly, now you writhe upon the ground. Your congees offend me, Boniface; they offend me. They are altogether too gross for a man of my nice instinct. But a truce to our pleasantries; my lord Farnham is in a highly serious mood. Landlord, do you go into your filthy stable, and rummage about in Will Jackson’s bed of straw. You will find a leathern case concealed there. Bring it to me as speedily as may be.” The landlord backed out of the chamber, his body still bent double, so that the tip of his nose appeared to rest on his belly. “Pah!” said the King; “I declare I must open the window. I wonder why every species of crawling reptile leaves a nauseous oily savour behind it.” To the woman it seemed an incredibly short time ere the landlord was back again with the leathern case; to the man in the bed, an incredibly long one. To the King himself, it had no period. He was too indifferent; indeed, he was absorbed in noticing how adorable the woman looked now the defiance was in her eyes. In his opinion, she looked the better for that charming attribute. As the unhappy lady had feared, the leathern case of the King’s was proved to contain a pair of pistols. With an inimitable air of courtesy, he offered them both to the man propped on the pillows. “My dear Farnham,” he said, “I can assure you that they are both equally excellent. But take your choice.” “This, Sire,” said Lord Farnham. By now he had got that petulant voice of his under admirable control.