“This is glorious!” cried the jester, taking a hand of each and leading them into a large comfortable kitchen. Then he turned and looked anxiously at the top of the open door. “No, there’s no time to make a booby-trap. Come along and put on aprons.”
Sylvia and Joe, both highly delighted with these joyous happenings, were soon dressed in little aprons and caps made out of napkins and busily helping their new friend. He sliced up a ham and got two large frying-pans going, while they put stools round a big table in the middle of the floor and laid plates and mugs and so on.
“Do you think forty eggs will be enough?” asked the young man.
“I think it will be almost more than enough,” replied Sylvia, doing a quick sum in her head. “It will be eight each.”
“I’ll make it fifty then,” said the strange being, breaking them thick and fast into the frying-pans.
A heavy clanging sound without indicated that Sir Percival was coming; he and Gorbo had been attending to the horse, supplying it with hay and so forth. As the knight entered the door, the jester turned with an egg poised ready to throw at his head. But he hesitated; then broke it into the pan instead. “I dare not,” he said to Joe. “What a pity!”
Gorbo paused as he came in and stood sniffing the delicious smell. He went across to the jester. “Bend low towards me,” he said. And when the other had done so Gorbo kissed him on the top of his head. “I also swear a friendship. What are you going to give us to drink?”
“I have here,” replied the other, making a flying leap over the table to a rough sideboard, “both milk for these little ones and beer for us men. Kindly pledge me,” he added, filling up two mugs.
While these two sportsmen were clinking their mugs and gossiping, Sylvia, standing on a stool by the stove, was dripping hot butter on the eggs to give them a choice flavour, and Joe was on another stool pronging out the slices of ham and laying them on a hot dish. They were very happy, because this was a really superior adventure, with food and cheerful things taking place. The castle, too, judging from the kitchen, was a self-respecting place, clean and well kept, and a nice change from the beast of a tower they had spent the night in.