the minstrels, worse than the clown in the circus. It seemed
peculiarly sad to sit here, thirteen hundred years before I was
born, and listen again to poor, flat, worm-eaten jokes that had
given me the dry gripes when I was a boy thirteen hundred years
afterwards. It about convinced me that there isn't any such thing
as a new joke possible. Everybody laughed at these antiquities
--but then they always do; I had noticed that, centuries later.
However, of course the scoffer didn't laugh--I mean the boy. No,
he scoffed; there wasn't anything he wouldn't scoff at. He said
the most of Sir Dinadan's jokes were rotten and the rest were
petrified. I said "petrified" was good; as I believed, myself,
that the only right way to classify the majestic ages of some of
those jokes was by geologic periods. But that neat idea hit
the boy in a blank place, for geology hadn't been invented yet.
However, I made a note of the remark, and calculated to educate
the commonwealth up to it if I pulled through. It is no use
to throw a good thing away merely because the market isn't ripe yet.

Now Sir Kay arose and began to fire up on his history-mill with me
for fuel. It was time for me to feel serious, and I did. Sir Kay
told how he had encountered me in a far land of barbarians, who
all wore the same ridiculous garb that I did--a garb that was a work
of enchantment, and intended to make the wearer secure from hurt
by human hands. However he had nullified the force of the
enchantment by prayer, and had killed my thirteen knights in
a three hours' battle, and taken me prisoner, sparing my life
in order that so strange a curiosity as I was might be exhibited
to the wonder and admiration of the king and the court. He spoke
of me all the time, in the blandest way, as "this prodigious giant,"
and "this horrible sky-towering monster," and "this tusked and