The Wonderful Adventures of Phra the Phoenician

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1917. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... my sudden appearance always had on strangers made them all stare at me as though I were a being of another world--as, indeed, I was--of many other worlds. And yet the comely, stalwart, raven-tressed, silkswathed fellow who sat there before them at the white-scrubbed board, marking their fearful wonder with regretful indifference, was solid and real, and presently the eldest of them swallowed his surprise and spoke out courteously for all, saying they would be glad enough to help my wishes, and then--warming with good fellowship as the first effect of my entry wore off--he added they were that afternoon bound for the rendezvous (as he termed it) at a near castle; "and if I could wear harness as fitly as I could wear silk, and had a squire and a horse," they would willingly take me along with them. So it was settled, and in a great bumper they drank to me and I to them, and thus informally was I admitted into the ranks of English chivalry. We ate and drank and laughed for an hour or two, and then settled with our host and got into our armor. This to them was customary enough, nor was it now so difficult a thing to me, for I had donned and doffed my gorgeous steel casings, by way of practice, so often in seclusion that, when it came to the actual test, assisted with the nimble fingers of that varlet of mine, I was in panoply from head to heel, helmeted and spurred, before the best of them. Ah! and I was not so old yet but that I could delight in what, after all, was a noble vestment! And as I looked round upon my knightly comrades draining the last drops of their flagons while their squires braced down their shining plates, and girt their steel hips with noble brands, the while I knew in my heart that if they were strong and stalwart I was stronger and more stalwart--t...