much, and always falls asleep when the dragon starts talking
about STYLE. But the fact is, nobody can help liking him when
once they know him. He's so engaging and so trustful, and
as simple as a child!"

"Sit down, and draw your chair up," said St. George. "I like a
fellow who sticks up for his friends, and I'm sure the dragon has
his good points, if he's got a friend like you. But that's not
the question. All this evening I've been listening, with grief
and anguish unspeakable, to tales of murder, theft, and wrong;
rather too highly coloured, perhaps, not always quite convincing,
but forming in the main a most serious roll of crime. History
teaches us that the greatest rascals often possess all the
domestic virtues; and I fear that your cultivated friend, in
spite of the qualities which have won (and rightly) your regard,
has got to be speedily exterminated."

"Oh, you've been taking in all the yarns those fellows have been
telling you," said the Boy impatiently. "Why, our villagers
are the biggest story-tellers in all the country round. It's a
known fact. You're a stranger in these parts, or else you'd have
heard it already. All they want is a FIGHT. They're the most
awful beggars for getting up fights--it's meat and drink to them.

Dogs, bulls, dragons--anything so long as it's a fight. Why,
they've got a poor innocent badger in the stable behind here, at
this moment. They were going to have some fun with him to-day,
but they're saving him up now till YOUR little affair's over.
And I've no doubt they've been telling you what a hero you were,
and how you were bound to win, in the cause of right and justice,