[Before dawn one July morning, he armed himself and rode out unseen] [Hardly past the gate, a horrid thought struck him: he had never been knighted] [He pictured, with delicious detail, the chronicler who would one day record this very ride] [Nearly all day he rode without finding a single adventure, which began to vex him sorely] [He halted before the gate, expecting a dwarf to herald him from the battlements] [The innkeeper, a stout rogue, came out and played along, and saw to the supper of the maddest knight he had ever entertained]