Chapter IV: Sir Dinadan the Humorist

by Mark Twain

　　It seemed to me that this quaint lie was most simplyand beautifully told; but then I had heard it onlyonce, and that makes a difference; it was pleasant tothe others when it was fresh, no doubt.Sir Dinadan the Humorist was the first to awake, andhe soon roused the rest with a practical joke of a sufficiently poor quality. He tied some metal mugs to adog's tail and turned him loose, and he tore around andaround the place in a frenzy of fright, with all the otherdogs bellowing after him and battering and crashingagainst everything that came in their way and makingaltogether a chaos of confusion and a most deafeningdin and turmoil; at which every man and woman of themultitude laughed till the tears flowed, and some fellout of their chairs and wallowed on the floor in ecstasy.It was just like so many children. Sir Dinadan was soproud of his exploit that he could not keep from tellingover and over again, to weariness, how the immortalidea happened to occur to him; and as is the way withhumorists of his breed, he was still laughing at it aftereverybody else had got through. He was so set upthat he concluded to make a speech -- of course ahumorous speech. I think I never heard so many oldplayed-out jokes strung together in my life. He wasworse than the minstrels, worse than the clown in thecircus. It seemed peculiarly sad to sit here, thirteenhundred years before I was born, and listen again topoor, flat, worm-eaten jokes that had given me the drygripes when I was a boy thirteen hundred years afterwards. It about convinced me that there isn't any suchthing as a new joke possible. Everybody laughed atthese antiquities -- but then they always do; I hadnoticed that, centuries later. However, of course thescoffer didn't laugh -- I mean the boy. No, he scoffed;there wasn't anything he wouldn't scoff at. He saidthe most of Sir Dinadan's jokes were rotten and the restwere petrified. I said "petrified" was good; as I believed, myself, that the only right way to classify themajestic ages of some of those jokes was by geologicperiods. But that neat idea hit the boy in a blankplace, for geology hadn't been invented yet. However,I made a note of the remark, and calculated to educatethe commonwealth up to it if I pulled through. It isno use to throw a good thing away merely because themarket 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 feelserious, and I did. Sir Kay told how he had encountered me in a far land of barbarians, who all worethe same ridiculous garb that I did -- a garb that was awork of enchantment, and intended to make the wearersecure from hurt by human hands. However he hadnullified the force of the enchantment by prayer, andhad killed my thirteen knights in a three hours' battle,and taken me prisoner, sparing my life in order that sostrange a curiosity as I was might be exhibited to thewonder and admiration of the king and the court. Hespoke of me all the time, in the blandest way, as "thisprodigious giant," and "this horrible sky-toweringmonster," and "this tusked and taloned man-devouring ogre", and everybody took in all this bosh in thenaivest way, and never smiled or seemed to notice thatthere was any discrepancy between these watered statistics and me. He said that in trying to escape from himI sprang into the top of a tree two hundred cubits highat a single bound, but he dislodged me with a stone thesize of a cow, which "all-to brast" the most of mybones, and then swore me to appear at Arthur's courtfor sentence. He ended by condemning me to die atnoon on the 21st; and was so little concerned about itthat he stopped to yawn before he named the date.I was in a dismal state by this time; indeed, I washardly enough in my right mind to keep the run of adispute that sprung up as to how I had better be killed,the possibility of the killing being doubted by some,because of the enchantment in my clothes. And yet itwas nothing but an ordinary suit of fifteen-dollar slopshops. Still, I was sane enough to notice this detail,to wit: many of the terms used in the most matter-offact way by this great assemblage of the first ladies andgentlemen in the land would have made a Comancheblush. Indelicacy is too mild a term to convey theidea. However, I had read "Tom Jones," and "Roderick Random," and other books of that kind, andknew that the highest and first ladies and gentlemen inEngland had remained little or no cleaner in their talk,and in the morals and conduct which such talk implies,clear up to a hundred years ago; in fact clear into ourown nineteenth century -- in which century, broadlyspeaking, the earliest samples of the real lady and realgentleman discoverable in English history -- or inEuropean history, for that matter -- may be said tohave made their appearance. Suppose Sir Walter, instead of putting the conversations into the mouths ofhis characters, had allowed the characters to speak forthemselves? We should have had talk from Rebeccaand Ivanhoe and the soft lady Rowena which wouldembarrass a tramp in our day. However, to the unconsciously indelicate all things are delicate. King Arthur's people were not aware that they were indecentand I had presence of mind enough not to mention it.They were so troubled about my enchanted clothesthat they were mightily relieved, at last, when oldMerlin swept the difficulty away for them with a common-sense hint. He asked them why they were so dull-- why didn't it occur to them to strip me. In half aminute I was as naked as a pair of tongs! And dear,dear, to think of it: I was the only embarrassed personthere. Everybody discussed me; and did it as unconcernedly as if I had been a cabbage. Queen Gueneverwas as naively interested as the rest, and said she hadnever seen anybody with legs just like mine before. Itwas the only compliment I got -- if it was a compliment.Finally I was carried off in one direction, and myperilous clothes in another. I was shoved into a darkand narrow cell in a dungeon, with some scant remnantsfor dinner, some moldy straw for a bed, and no endof rats for company.