As this prince was one day sitting in public, he commanded his jester to go and bring him word what a dog, that was barking very loud, wanted.

"Fare thee well, good fool," said he, "I leave thee to thy dreams; God send they be ever fair" "Gold!" cried the jester, spinning the coin upon his thumb, "ha, now do I dream indeed; may thy waking be ever as joyous.

" "Heigho!" sighed the jester, "thy very look doth proclaim thee lover, and 'tis well, for love maketh the fool wise and the wise fool, it changeth saints into rogues and rogues into saints, it teacheth the strong man gentleness and maketh the gentle strong.

"O, mercy of God!" whispered the jester hoarsely at last, "what need was there for thisthey would have slept" "Aye," smiled Beltane, "but not so soundly as now, methinks.

Invite any one of them to talk, and if your highness is not pleased with him you have only to put him back in his cornerand bring some jester to sharpen the laughter of your highness, or some poet to set your faintest emotion to music!

And even yet I hope to cleave the jester through the brain, meet him when I may.

She confronted the jester, hands upon hips, her doll eyes shining with triumph.

Talk!" Does it begin to be obvious why kings used to employ court jesters?

[Enter JESTER from gates.] JESTER.

A merry companion is welcome and acceptable to all men, and therefore, saith Gomesius, princes and great men entertain jesters and players commonly in their courts.

Thereafter, Beltane followed the jester down a narrow stair built in the thickness of the wall, and along a passage that ended abruptly, nor could Beltane see any sign of door in the solid masonry that barred their way.

"What for, ole son?" inquired the jester indulgently.

I like your jester.'

in that moment, he loosed the breathless jester and spake with bowed head: "Dear my lady, I forgot!"

When kings were kings, they bullied, beat, and and brow-beat their jesters.

" "Aye, aye," mused the jester, fingering the mildewed shroud, "and sooth, he was the finest mute that ever crooked a back in the Bohemian court.

The court of Louis the Sixteenth needs no jester.

" "Aye, Sir Gravity," nodded the jester, "but the Church is paramount ever; set the pope a-blowing of tunes upon a reed and kings would lay by their sceptres and pipe too and, finding no time or lust for warring, so strife would end, swords rust and wit grow keen.

"Messire," panted the jester, wild of eye and with a trickle of blood upon his pallid face, "O sweet sirlet them not slay me!"

"You will pardon your poor jester," he said, "if he fails to make a joke on your last night.

The old man who had done the hoe-down hobbled to the end of the barroom and before the table of Mac Strann made a speech to the effect that Elkhead had everything it needed except laughter, that Mac Strann had come to their assistance in that respect, and that if he, the old man, had the power, he would pension such an efficient jester and keep him permanently in the town.

So in the refectory, when they sat down for a meal, there was an endless fire of raillery, and the blue-eyed boy with the blond hair used to crow like Peter Pan and speak a wonderful mixture of French and English, and play the jester gallantly.

Their jesters are known to have surpassed in refinement the jesters of Damascus, as did their twelve police captains the hardiest and most corrupt of Bagdad in the tolerant days of Harun-al-Raschid; while their old women, not to mention their young wives, could deceive the Father of Lies himself.

"Look at him," repeated the jester.

"Whata sword!" scoffed the jester, "think ye to mend the woes of thy fellows with a sword?