"Well, you have a right to it, and I shall tell you.

We were just sitting down to dinner at Falkenstein, rather late,--hours get later every year, I think--when I heard a row in the premises, and the captain of the guard, Colonel McDougal, came and told us that a man had arrived with the horns and tail of the Firedrake, and was claiming the reward.
Her majesty and I rose and went into the outer court, where we found, sitting on that carpet with a glass of beer in his hand, a respectable- looking upper servant, whom I recognised as your butler.

He informed us that he had just killed the beast, and showed us the horns and tail, sure enough; there they are! The tail is like the iron handle of a pump, but the horns are genuine.

A pair were thrown up by a volcano, in my great- grandfather's time, Giglio I.{100} Excellent coffee this, of yours!" The ambassador bowed.
"Well, we asked him _where_ he killed the Firedrake, and he said in a garden near Gluckstein.

Then he began to speak about the reward, and the 'perkisits,' as he called them, which it seems he had read about in my proclamation.