Page:Bill the minder.djvu/188

 'THE INTERVAL' Every one cheered in their delight at the readiness of the good woman, and congratulated each other cordially on this interesting addition to their forces.

The King now stood up in his chair, and after quieting the general excitement by ringing his bell, he thus addressed his troops:—

'My dear old boys and girls, although, no doubt, I appear to you a very fine man indeed, with a good appetite and fairly well covered for my time of life, I am not quite the man I should be. You must know that in my early babyhood I was a victim to the wicked carelessness of the royal cook. One morning this thoughtless creature left an unboiled parsnip on the garden path (had it been boiled and soft, my fate had been different perhaps) while chatting with a friend at the tradesmen's entrance. As ill luck would have it, I was at the time playing on the palace roof, to which I had climbed through the nursery chimney, and, childlike, was gazing curiously at a strange bird flying overhead, when I overbalanced and fell from the roof right on to the parsnip on the garden path, which, as you will guess, hurt me very severely indeed.'

The King here exhibited to his audience a dent on his head in the form of a parsnip.

'On hearing of this my father, of course, was highly indignant, and ordered the cook to be beheaded instantly, or, at all events, as soon as she had finished cooking the dinner.

'The dinner, however, was so excellent that my 136