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Newspaper Page Text
? HVT-1 j 'g T 5 '-v x Ware throw fits if she could sce-o-" "See here, Popoff, youcut that out," growled Burnett "through the bars of his vizor. "Any more talk of that sort and we part com pany. Understand?" Popoff subsided sulkily and helped the trussed knight to ad just the leg and arm pieces. When at last this- was done he propped him against a wall and proceeded " to attire the horsein chest-piece and head armor. As this protec tion was more for show than for utility, he found it easy, to carry and adjust the steel pieces, though the gray showed consider able restlessness during the oper ation. Finally, with a prodigious effort, he placed Burnett upon the horse's back and, having taken his lance, Burnett passed round the yard at a ponderous canter, from time to time testing the ac curacy of his aim against a cir cle chalked on a! wall. After some half hour of this performance the . perspiring knight was unharness ed, the armor packed away, and the steed was given a drink of water and a fresh feed. - Five days later the celebrated tournanient was to be .held in the Earl's Court grounds, at which -the nobility of England, and ""many who were not noble, were to participate in a grandjevival of the medieval sport Burnett, who had recently gone to Eng land in the interests of the Popoff 'Ijrra, had been an authority on the tournament; he had written a" thesis on "Medieval Armor" Sfhich had attracted ,some atten tion among archeologists. When, his father, obsessed by the be lief that a commercial existence was indispensable for a youn man, had given him the alterna tive between entering the em ployment of the Popoffs and be ing stricken out of his will, Bur nett had rather sulkily gone th England, as advertising managed, to find the whole country agog over the forthcoming pageant And the wHd idea had come to him of engaging in the tourna ment. "I'm a pretty fair rider, Popoff," -he argued.. "I didn't often get" thrown when I was bronco-busting in Wyoming and I kept my seat on the greased rail at Coney last year, during the car nival, and won a pewter challenge cup. Why shouldn't I nter as an unknown 4cnightt and meet the nobility on equal terms f' - "Because the cops Wjll stop you before you can get. in' said Popoff. , -' "We'll see," respQndedf Bur nett confidently. "I 'gues4 it will take some cops to stop me when I'm in my tourneying'togs." And so, five .mornings later, the workmen having-jreceived a special holiday onfull pay, to en able Burnett toaecouter himself unobserved, the young man mounted the sullen gray and pass ed through the big gates into the busy Earl's court road, to the amazement of the public. - ' In the distance he saw a whirc pavilion set in a meadowy as he rode nearer he perceived a circle of tiers of wooden seats, on which Mt a IvI