MON JOFROY

Otaki Mail, 22 December 1939, Page 4

MON JOFROY

TRUE DWARF STORY When he was a baby Geoffrey Hudson used to bite and scratch and scream, but people were only amused at him, because ho was too small to do any harm. Until he was able to walk he had to be carried about in a little basket because he was too tiny to handle. When he was able to toddle a silken cord was tied around him, because it he had fallen into a puddle he would most certainly have drowned. You sec, he was a dwarf. Geoffrey found life very difficult when ho grew up; although he was clever and brave he was too small to work, and w'hat else could a poor boy do? On his seventeenth birthday he was only 18in high, and then somebody suggested giving him to the Queen as a curiosity. Now, the Queen was Henrietta Maria, wife of King Charles I. At this time she was expected to attend a banquet at the Palace Nonsuch, and it was decided that Geoffrey Hudson should be put into a pie and placed before her on the table. At first Geoffrey was angry —he had a furious temper but at last they persuaded him that it was his only hope. He allowed himself to be dressed in a rich velvet suit and thev gave him a little sword and a hat with a feather in it.

The cook made a largo pie, but put nothing in it. When it was baked the top was taken off, and Geoffrey, wearing his fine clothes, got inside. The banquet was served on a magnificent table, and when the Queen was seated she admired the beautiful pie and asked for a piece. A page put a long knife into it and cut a slice. Out stepped Geoffrey and bowed beside the Queen’s plate. She uttered a cry of astonishment and asked the boy his name. “Mon Jofroy,” she cried. We will be friends. Oh, mon petit Jofroy!”

The strange thing was that they became friends. Geoffrey served the Queen faithfully, and once saved her life, and after the death of Charles I. he accompanied her to Paris. He was now about 22in high, and never grew any taller than that.

His temper almost cost him his life. A nobleman teased him about his size, and in a rage Geoffrey challenged him to fight a duel. The nobleman arrived armed with a water squirt, but Geoffrey had a pistol, and being a romarkable shot, he killed the nobleman /with the first bullet. There was a terrible fuss, and Queen Henrietta Maria had to beg very hard in order to save “Mon Jofroy” from being put to death. After that shock he tried to control his temper.