with his back to the fire, and seeing him forget himself once or twice, standing in that posture, the tutor said, “Sir, the wager is won, you have failed twice.”  “Master,” replied Henry, “Saint Peter’s cock crew thrice.”—­A musician having played a voluntary in his presence, was requested to play the same again.  “I could not for the kingdom of Spain,” said the musician, “for this were harder than for a preacher to repeat word by word a sermon that he had not learned by rote.”  A clergyman standing by, observed that he thought a preacher might do that:  “Perhaps,” rejoined the young prince, “for a bishopric!”

The natural facetiousness of his temper appears frequently in the good humour with which the little prince was accustomed to treat his domestics.  He had two of opposite characters, who were frequently set by the ears for the sake of the sport; the one, Murray, nicknamed “the tailor,” loved his liquor; and the other was a stout “trencherman.”  The king desired the prince to put an end to these broils, and to make the men agree, and that the agreement should be written and subscribed by both.  “Then,” said the prince, “must the drunken tailor subscribe it with chalk, for he cannot write his name, and then I will make them agree upon this condition—­that the trencherman shall go into the cellar, and drink with Will Murray, and Will Murray shall make a great wallet for the trencherman to carry his victuals in.”—­One of his servants having cut the prince’s finger, and sucked out the blood with his mouth, that it might heal the more easily, the young prince, who expressed no displeasure at the accident, said to him pleasantly, “If, which God forbid! my father, myself, and the rest of his kindred should fail, you might claim the crown, for you have now in you the blood-royal.”—­Our little prince once resolved on a hearty game of play, and for this purpose only admitted his young gentlemen, and excluded the men:  it happened that an old servant, not aware of the injunction, entered the apartment, on which the prince told him he might play too; and when the prince was asked why he admitted this old man rather than the other men, he rejoined, “Because he had a right to be of their number, for Senex bis puer.”

Nor was Henry susceptible of gross flattery, for when once he wore white shoes, and one said that he longed to kiss his foot, the prince said to the fawning courtier, “Sir, I am not the pope;” the other replied that “he would not kiss the pope’s foot, except it were to bite off his great toe.”  The prince gravely rejoined:  “At Rome you would be glad to kiss his foot and forget the rest.”