``Have I ever told you the story of St. Vespaluus?'' he
asked.
``You've told me stories about grand-dukes and lion-tamers
and financiers' widows and a postmaster in Herzegovina,''
said the Baroness, ``and about an Italian jockey and an
amateur governess who went to Warsaw, and several about your
mother, but certainly never anything about a saint.''
``This story happened a long while ago,'' he said, ``in
those uncomfortable piebald times when a third of the people
were Pagan, and a third Christian, and the biggest third of
all just followed whichever religion the Court happened to
profess. There was a certain king called Hkrikros, who had
a fearful temper and no immediate successor in his own
family; his married sister, however, had provided him with a
large stock of nephews from which to select his heir. And
the most eligible and royally-approved of all these nephews
was the sixteen-year-old Vespaluus. He was the best
looking, and the best horseman and javelin-thrower, and had
that priceless princely gift of being able to walk past a
supplicant with an air of not having seen him, but would
certainly have given something if he had.
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