"I won't play unless I'm Lancelot," I said. I didn't mean it
really, but the game of Knights always began with this particular
contest.

"O PLEASE," implored Harold. "You know when Edward's here I
never get a chance of being Lancelot. I haven't been Lancelot
for weeks!"

Then I yielded gracefully. "All right," I said. "I'll be
Tristram."

"O, but you can't," cried Harold again.

"Charlotte has always been Tristram. She won't play unless she's
allowed to be Tristram! Be somebody else this time."

Charlotte said nothing, but breathed hard, looking straight
before her. The peerless hunter and harper was her special hero
of romance, and rather than see the part in less appreciative
hands, she would even have returned sadly to the stuffy
schoolroom.

"I don't care," I said: "I'll be anything. I'll be Sir Kay.
Come on!"

Then once more in this country's story the mail-clad knights
paced through the greenwood shaw, questing adventure, redressing
wrong; and bandits, five to one, broke and fled discomfited to
their caves. Once again were damsels rescued, dragons