Now call up the next." "Henry the First, surnamed Beauclerk, never smiled again after his son was lost, and died of a surfeit of lampreys," read the prince.
"Oh, those lampreys!" groaned Henry; "I am perfectly sick of them.

I assure you, my lords and gentlemen, they were no more lampreys--" "No, not after you'd done supper," growled Rufus.
"In that case, William," retorted Beauclerk, "I should have said `there,' and not `they.' But I do assure you, gentlemen, I never saw a lamprey in my life; and as for smiling again," added he, in quite an apologetic way, "I did it often, when nobody was by; _really I did_." "Are you sure ?" asked the judge.

"Show us how you did it." Whereupon Henry the First favoured the court with a fascinating leer, which left no doubt on any one's mind that he had been falsely accused.
So two more lies were set down against me; and the Black Prince called over the next.
"`Stephen usurped the throne on Henry's death.'" "Quite right, quite right," said Matilda; "perfectly correct." "`Matilda, after a civil war, in which her bad temper made her many enemies--'" "Oh you story!" exclaimed the empress.

"Oh! you wicked young man!" "Address the judge, please," said Henry the Eighth.
"Oh, you wicked young man," repeated the empress, turning to the bench; "I'd like to scratch you, I would!" "Don't do that," said Henry: "I get quite enough of that at home, I assure you.

Anyhow, Nigger can chalk it down a lie for you, eh ?" "And one for me, too, please," said Stephen.