glorious and triumphant ladies and privily advise them to send me
hence guerdons of gold or silver if haply they are tormented by base
enchanters, cruel dragons, vile hippogriffins, or other untoward
monsters, and I do swear to redress their wrongs when those guerdons
do come unto me. For it doth delight me beyond all else to avenge
foul insults heaped upon princesses and lorn maidens. If so be thou
dost behold that incomparable pearl of female beauty and virtue, the
Fair Unknown, prithee kiss thou her bejewelled hand for me and by thy
invincible blade renew my allegiance unto her sweet cause. Methinks
her sunny locks and azure orbs do haunt my dreams, and anon I hear
her silvery tones supplicating me to accept another arms. And I do
lustily beshrew fate that these be but dreams.

Now in very sooth do I pray ye may speedily come unto me. Or if you
abide in that far-off province, heaven grant ye prosperity and
happiness such as surely cannot befall the Good Knight till thou dost
uplift his arms again.

I do supplicate thee to make obeisance unto all in my name and to
send hither tidings of thy well-being. How goeth the jousts and
tourneys with the toboggan, and hath the cyclonic Sir Barbour wrought
much havoc with his perennial rhetoric in the midst of thee? I do
kiss thy hand and subscribe myself,

Thy sweet and sorry slave,

THE GOOD KNIGHT.

All of this exercise in the phraseology of chivalry was written on a
single sheet of note-paper with such generous margins that the text