156 PRINCE FILDERKIN

the banjo as he had already done upon pre-
vious occasions, once more broke out into
a song such as had probably never before
been heard in the palace of the hump-
backed mountebanks :

‘Come all ye hump-back'd pigmies and listen to my
lay,

You'll find them very curious, the things I’ve got to
say.

Prince Filderkin they call me, I've come a weary
track

With my banjo and its music and a hump upon my
back.’ g

What might have been the rest of this song
can now never be certainly known, for at
this point the King interrupted it without
the least hesitation.

‘Shut up!’ he cried, using a familiar ex-
pression among the mountebanks when they
wished to bring any performance to a con-
clusion. ‘Shut up, you young humbug!
You can’t come over me by that nonsense—
I’m a day and a half too old for it!’

As these words of ill omen fell from the
angry monarch, the Prince again struck his
banjo, making a gallant attempt to save
himself from the consequences of the royal