Page:William Tell Told Again.djvu/79

Rh to work. He had forbidden the eating of everything except bread and the simplest sorts of meat, because he said that anything else upset people, and made them unfit to do anything except sit still and say how ill they were. And he had forbidden all sorts of games, because he said they were a waste of time.

So that now, though he wanted dreadfully to forbid something else, he could not think of anything.

Then he had an idea, and this was it:

He told his servants to cut a long pole. And they cut a very long pole. Then he said to them, “Go into the hall and bring me one of my hats. Not my best hat, which I wear on Sundays and on State occasions; nor yet my second-best, which I wear every day; nor yet, again, the one I wear when I am out hunting, for all these I need. Fetch me, rather, the oldest of my hats." And they