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“He reins the horse about and puts the golden spurs to her!”

“But that is the direction from which he lately came with such excess of speed!”

“No, it’s slightly different! It’s an angle of about fifteen degrees to the first!”

“This breakbone pace will soon unhorse him!”

“Not Launcelot! Launcelot is the greatest horseman in the realm!”

“Look you! Launcelot and his horse have plunged into a deep mire!”

“He’s thrown! The horse is down!”

“Now the horse struggles to his feet! But Launcelot’s still on the ground! Perhaps he’s broken something!”

“No, he’s up, he inspects the horse, he leaps into the saddle, he reigns about once again—Now he rides off furiously in still another way!”

“He burns the ground in his careening!”

“It is as if he hears beans a-bulging from every quarter of his compass!”

“His responsibilities are grave and many!”

“Look there, there is another knight in Launcelot’s path the twain have fewtered their spears they hurtle fast together the knight who is not Sir Launcelot is shocked out of the saddle he rises in the air turning end over end—”

“Launcelot wallops on doesn’t even stop to smite the fellow’s head off but pounds ever more fiercely toward a distant goal—”

“I’m losing sight of him, his figure dwindles and grows small!”

“I can see him still, getting smaller and smaller in the remote distance!”

“Riding, riding—”


Guinevere in London, at the palace. Sitting in a chair buttering an apple.

“I’m getting sick, sore, and tired of this,” she said.

“Yes, mum,” said Varley.

“Good evening, fellow Englishmen,” the radio said. “This is Germany calling.”

“A fundamentally disagreeable voice,” said Guinevere, “stale cabbage.”

“The invincible forces of the Reich,” said Haw-Haw, “are advancing on all fronts. Dunkirk has been completely secured. The slaughter is very great. Gawain as been reported captured—”

“Not in a hundred million years,” said Guinevere. “Gawain will pepper their pork for them.”

“The false and miscreant king, Arthur, languishes meanwhile at Dover, according to my spies. Conspicuously alone. No Guinevere. I think we may, dear countrymen, wonder what this may mean. ”

“This will be a bit about you, mum.”

“I suppose.”

“And where is Launcelot? Where indeed? Where Guinevere is,” said Haw-Haw. “The war forgot. Helm and mail laid aside, hanging from the bedpost.”