SCR00007.104

COMIC ENGLISH HISTORY.

BY OUR OWN HISTORIOGRAPHER-ROYAL.

The only improvements in this rain were with introduction of Fox's patent paragon ribs to umbrellas, the establishment of pawnbrokers all over the kingdom (a happy idea of Rufus's own, for which we love and venerate his memory more every day of our lives), and the institution of the University boat-race, on which His Majesty betted freely.

Rare Bits increased its staff by two men and a boy, and its indefatigable editor was knighted by his appreciative Soverign in recognition of his merits.

On the 2nd of August, 1,100, the king met his death—not by appointment; it was an accidental meeting as far as the lively William was concerned.

Being very partial to shooting at stags, although he never by any chance hit them, he went out one morning to the New Forest, hunting with Sir Walter Tyrrel, a masher of the period and particular friend of his. Now, Sir Walter was a kind of masculine Annie Oakley or Dr. Carver—a dead shot when the stags stood still, but on this particular occasion they do not seem quite to have fallen in with his views, and inconsiderately ran away when he fired at them. This annoyed him, and muttering an Anglo-Norman oath, he turned and made a target of his royal companion, and hit the bull's-eye with fatal precision. He may only have intended to wing his bird, but he brought him down a corpse.