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soon as the coals began to burn him, the King came to himself and stood up. “Ho! my Captain of the Guards!” his Majesty exclaimed, stamping his royal feet with rage. O piteous spectacle! the King’s nose was bent quite crooked by the blow of Prince Giglio! His Majesty ground his teeth with rage. “Hedzoff,” he said, taking a death-warrant out of his dressing-gown

pocket,—“Hedzoff, good Hedzoff, seize upon the Prince. Thou’lt find him in his chamber two pair up. But now he dared, with sacrilegious hand, to strike the sacred nightcap of a king—Hedzoff, and floor me with a warming-pan! Away, no more demur, the villain dies! See it be done, or else—h’m!—h’m!—h’m! mind thine own eyes!” And followed by the ladies, and lifting up the tails of his dressing-gown, the King entered his own apartment.

Captain Hedzoff was very much affected, having a sincere love for Giglio. “Poor, poor Giglio!” he said, the tears rolling over his manly face, and dripping down his moustaches. “My noble young Prince, is it my hand must lead thee to death?”

“Lead him to fiddlestick, Hedzoff,” said a female voice. It was Gruffanuff, who had come out in her dressing-gown when she heard the noise. “The King said you were to hang the Prince. Well, hang the Prince.”

“I don’t understand you,” says Hedzoff, who was not a very clever man.

“You Gaby! he didn’t say which Prince,” says Gruffanuff.

“No; he didn’t say which, certainly,” says Hedzoff.

“Well, then, take Bulbo, and hang him!”