keep thy head and all the rest of thee for, as I said before, this is Koil-and-Poggle Ford, and Sack-Son, I am a perfect Gale! Lay on—and no prodding in the stummick. . . ."
Ill fared it then with Roderic Dhu, as d(h)uly laid down in the poem and shown forth in the picture.
It was a truly Homeric combat, and when Brodrick Two got a nasty crack across the knuckles, he only put his sword in his other hand the while he sucked them. But his eye flashed fire.
"I'll be Fizz-James next time," he panted, as he received, but recked not of, a wound. Apparently Fitz-James concluded that the best thing to do, in view of this threatened change of rôle, was to make hay while the sun shone, for, as, with a heart-rending groan, Roderic sank to earth and closed his eyes, he dealt him a superfluous and uncalled for coup de grâce. Worse, it partook of the nature of a prohibited "prod in the stummick". Too immersed in the enthralling business of artistic death-throes to protest, Roderic but rolled over on to the illegally as-
