KNIGHTS OF THE TABLE ROUND

Mainly the Round Table talk was monologues — narrative accounts of the adventures in which these prisoners were captured and their friends and backers killed and stripped of their steeds and armor.

As a general thing — as far as I could make out — these murderous adventures were not forays undertaken to avenge injuries, nor to settle old disputes or sudden fallings out; no, as a rule they were simply duels between strangers — duels between people who had never even been introduced to each other, and between whom e11sted no cause of offense whatever. Many a time I had seen a couple of boys, strangers, meet by chance, and say simultaneously, “I can lick you,” and go at it on the spot; but I had always imagined until now that