Page:The Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray Vol.20.pdf/263

Rh give up your sword without ado. Look! we are thirty thousand men to one!”

“Give up my sword! Giglio give up his sword!” cried the Prince; and stepping well forward on to the balcony, the royal youth, without preparation, delivered a speech so magnificent that no report can do justice to it. It was all in blank verse (in which, from this time, he invariably spoke, as more becoming his majestic station). It lasted for three days and three nights, during which not a single person who heard him was tired or remarked the difference between daylight and dark, the soldiers only cheering tremendously when occasionally—once in nine hours—the Prince paused to suck an orange, which Jones took out of the bag. He explained, in terms which we say we shall not attempt to convey, the whole history of the previous transaction, and his determination not only not to give up his sword, but to assume his rightful crown; and at the end of this extraordinary, this truly gigantic effort, Captain Hedzoff flung up his helmet and cried, “Hurray! Hurray! Long live King Giglio!”

Such were the consequences of having employed his time well at college!

When the excitement had ceased, beer was ordered out for the army, and their Sovereign himself did not disdain a little! And now it was with some alarm that Captain Hedzoff told him his divison was only the advanced of the Paflagonian contingent hastening to King Padella’s aid—the main force being a day’s march in the rear under his Royal Highness Prince Bulbo.

“We will wait here, good friend, to beat the Prince,” his Majesty said, “and then will make his royal Father wince.”

made very similar proposals to Rosalba to those which she had received from the various Princes who, as we have seen, had fallen in love with her. His Majesty was a widower, and offered to marry his fair captive that instant, but she declined his invitation in her usual polite gentle manner, stating that Prince Giglio was her