“Hast drunk thyself horn-mad, Corinius?” said the King under his breath, his voice shaken with anger. “He is as witty a marmalade-eater as ever I conversed with,” said La Fireez, “but I cannot tell what the dickens he means.” “That,” answered Corinius, “which should make thy smirking face turn serious. I mean our ancient enemies, the haskardly mongrels of Demonland. First gulp, Goldry, taken heaven knows whither by the King’s sending in a deadly scud of wind——” “The devil damn thee!” cried the King, “what drunken brabble is this?” But the Prince La Fireez waxed red as blood, saying, “This it is then that lieth behind this hudder mudder, and ye go to war with Demonland? Think not to have my help therein.” “We shall not sleep the worse for that,” said Corinius. “Our mouth is big enough for such a morsel of marchpane as thou, if thou turn irksome.” “Thy mouth is big enough to blab the secretest intelligence, as we now most laughably approve,” said La Fireez. “Were I the King, I would draw lobster’s whiskers on thy skin, for a tipsy and a prattling popinjay.” “An insult!” cried the Lord Corinius, leaping up. “I would not take an insult from the Gods in heaven. Reach me a sword, boy! I will make Beshtrian cut-works in his guts.” “Peace, on your lives!” said the King in a great voice, while Corund went to Corinius and Gro to the Prince to quiet them. “Corinius is wounded in the wrist and cannot fight, and belike his brain is fevered by the wound.” “Heal him, then, of this carving the Goblins gave him, and I will carve him like a capon,” said the Prince. “Goblins!” said Corinius fiercely. “Know, vile fellow, the best swordsman in the world gave me this wound. Had it been thou that stood before me, I had cut thee into steaks, that art caponed already.” But the King stood up in his majesty, saying, “Silence, on your lives!” And the King’s eyes glittered with wrath, and he said, “For thee, Corinius, not thy hot youth and rebellious blood nor yet the wine thou hast swilled into that greedy belly of thine shall mitigate the rigour of my displeasure. Thy punishment I reserve unto to-morrow. And thou, La Fireez, look thou bear thyself more humbly in my halls. Over pert was the message brought me by thine herald at thy coming hither this morning, and too much it smacked of a greeting from an equal to an equal, calling thy tribute a gift, though it, and thou, and all thy principality are mine by right to deal with as seems me good. Yet did I bear with thee: unwisely, as I think, since thy pertness nourished by my forbearance springeth up yet ranker at my table, and thou insultest and brawlest in my halls. Be advised, lest my wrath forge thunderbolts against thee.”