“He seems incapable, my dear boy.  What have you been up to?—­Benson!  Benson!—­I say, Ricky, this looks bad.”

“He’s shamming!” Richard clamoured like a savage.  “Spy upon me, will he?  I tell you, he’s shamming.  He hasn’t had half enough.  Nothing’s too bad for a spy.  Let him getup!”

“Insatiate youth! do throw away that enormous weapon.”

“He has written to my father,” Richard shouted.  “The miserable spy!  Let him get up!”

“Ooogh?  I won’t!” huskily groaned Benson.  “Mr. Hadrian, you’re a witness—­he’s my back!”—­Cavernous noises took up the tale of his maltreatment.

“I daresay you love your back better than any part of your body now,” Adrian muttered.  “Come, Benson! be a man.  Mr. Richard has thrown away the stick.  Come, and get off home, and let’s see the extent of the damage.”

“Ooogh! he’s a devil!  Mr. Hadrian, sir, he’s a devil!” groaned Benson, turning half over in the road to ease his aches.

Adrian caught hold of Benson’s collar and lifted him to a sitting posture.  He then had a glimpse of what his hopeful pupil’s hand could do in wrath.  The wretched butler’s coat was slit and welted; his hat knocked in; his flabby spirit so broken that he started and trembled if his pitiless executioner stirred a foot.  Richard stood over him, grasping his great stick; no dawn of mercy for Benson in any corner of his features.

Benson screwed his neck round to look up at him, and immediately gasped, “I won’t get up!  I won’t!  He’s ready to murder me again!—­Mr. Hadrian! if you stand by and see it, you’re liable to the law, sir—­I won’t get up while he’s near.”  No persuasion could induce Benson to try his legs while his executioner stood by.

Adrian took Richard aside:  “You’ve almost killed the poor devil, Ricky.  You must be satisfied with that.  Look at his face.”

“The coward bobbed while I struck” said Richard.  “I marked his back.  He ducked.  I told him he was getting it worse.”

At so civilized piece of savagery, Adrian opened his mouth wide.

“Did you really?  I admire that.  You told him he was getting it worse?”

Adrian opened his mouth again to shake another roll of laughter out.

“Come,” he said, “Excalibur has done his word.  Pitch him into the lake.  And see—­here comes the Blandish.  You can’t be at it again before a woman.  Go and meet her, and tell her the noise was an ox being slaughtered.  Or say Argus.”

With a whirr that made all Benson’s bruises moan and quiver, the great ash-branch shot aloft, and Richard swung off to intercept Lady Blandish.

Adrian got Benson on his feet.  The heavy butler was disposed to summon all the commiseration he could feel for his bruised flesh.  Every half-step he attempted was like a dislocation.  His groans and grunts were frightful.

“How much did that hat cost, Benson?” said Adrian, as he put it on his head.