P. G. Wodehouse: The Man Upstairs and Other Stories

17. SIR AGRAVAINE: A TALE OF KING ARTHUR'S ROUND TABLE (continued)

'Very good of you to come,' said the earl.

'It's a pleasure,' said Agravaine. 'I have been hearing all about the dragon.'

'A great scourge,' agreed his host. 'We must have a long talk about it after dinner.'

It was the custom in those days in the stately homes of England for the whole strength of the company to take their meals together. The guests sat at the upper table, the ladies in a gallery above them, while the usual drove of men-at-arms, archers, malapert rogues, varlets, scurvy knaves, scullions, and plug-uglies attached to all medieval households, squashed in near the door, wherever they could find room.

The retinue of Earl Dorm was not strong numerically--the household being, to judge from appearances, one that had seen better days; but it struck Agravaine that what it lacked in numbers it made up in toughness. Among all those at the bottom of the room there was not one whom it would have been agreeable to meet alone in a dark alley. Of all those foreheads not one achieved a height of more than one point nought four inches. A sinister collection, indeed, and one which, Agravaine felt, should have been capable of handling without his assistance any dragon that ever came into the world to stimulate the asbestos industry.

He was roused from his reflections by the voice of his host.

'I hope you are not tired after your journey, Sir Agravaine? My little girl did not bore you, I trust? We are very quiet folk here. Country mice. But we must try to make your visit interesting.'

Agravaine felt that the dragon might be counted upon to do that. He said as much.

'Ah, yes, the dragon,' said Earl Dorm, 'I was forgetting the dragon. I want to have a long talk with you about that dragon. Not now. Later on.'