The Boss and the king have a number of problems on their journey because the king simply will not, or cannot, act like a peasant; indeed, The Boss manages to save them from being killed several times, once by using a dynamite bomb to blow up a group of charging knights.
During one incident, they help a woman who is dying of smallpox, leaving just before her sons, who had been imprisoned by the local lord, escape and arrive home. As The Boss and the king move through the night, they see the glow of a fire in the distance, and they discover the corpses of a number of men who have been hanged. Near morning, they come to a hut, and they finally convince the woman who greets them to give them some hospitality. After they have slept, she feeds them, and they learn that the lord of that area has been killed and that all the freemen in the neighborhood have been out all night looking for whoever is responsible for the murder. The Boss notices that his host and hostess are terribly nervous, and he guesses that they are probably related to the boys who are responsible for the lord's death. Therefore, he goes out with his host, Marco, and they agree that they will say nothing about key suspects who escaped. Instead, they walk through the village talking to people. The Boss invites a number of them to dinner that Sunday, and he insists on paying for everything; thus a sumptuous spread is prepared at the store.
The Boss's purpose in gathering these people for a meal is to find out what they think about wages and about the relationship between wages and purchasing power; he wants to convince them that his way of thinking is better than theirs, but all he manages to do is make them suspicious of him. Then, before he can cover up his error and ease their suspicions, the king begins talking about agricultural matters in such a way that makes these people think that he is mad. As a result, the men set upon the king and The Boss. Although the king and The Boss are winning the fight, they notice that their hosts have left. Suspecting that they have gone for help to aid their neighbors, the king and The Boss flee.
They are finally captured, however, but before these villagers can beat them, as they intend to do, the king and The Boss are rescued by an earl named Grip. Although Grip feeds them, gives them a room for the night, and lends them horses to ride to the next town, once they are there, he has them bound and sold as slaves.
They are then driven to London, along with a number of other slaves. Along the way, they see several instances of the cruelty of the laws and the difficulties of the life of the common people. After a time, The Boss manages to steal a metal clasp with a long pin from a prospective slave buyer; he uses this as a lock pick, and he is able to free himself. Before he can escape, however, the slave master comes in. The Boss tries to catch him, but he scuffles with the wrong man, and both of them are arrested. In the morning, in court, The Boss tells the judge a story that effects his immediate release, and he uses a telephone to call Clarence in Camelot so that knights can be sent to the rescue.
In the meantime, he learns that the slaves had killed the slave-master in the night and that all of them are to be hanged. He tries to make some contacts with people he knows, but in doing so, he is captured and put in with the other slaves; the jailer tells him that they are all to be hanged in the middle of the afternoon.
At a climactic moment when three of the slaves have been hanged, and the blindfold has been put on the king, suddenly five hundred of Camelot's finest knights ride up on bicycles. They take charge of the situation and rescue the king and The Boss.
Just after they return to Camelot, The Boss learns that he must enter the tournament lists and must joust against Sir Sagramor.
Instead of conventional weapons, however, The Boss uses a lasso and ropes Sir Sagramor and yanks several other knights off their horses. After Merlin steals the rope, Sir Sagramor challenges The Boss again; this time, The Boss uses a revolver which he has made and shoots him. When one of the other knights challenges him, The Boss challenges all of them together, and he shoots nine of them before the rest turn and flee.
After this, The Boss has his own way for a time, and he makes many changes in England, revealing some of the earlier changes which he quietly accomplished. He also marries Sandy, and they have a child whom Sandy names Hello-Central. When Hello-Central falls ill, The Boss spends a great deal of time with her and, on the advice of doctors, he takes her to the seaside. She falls ill again while they are visiting a kingdom on the French coast. About a month later, after she is fully recovered, The Boss goes to England to see what has happened to the boat which they had sent to bring them supplies; they are worried, for it should have returned at least three weeks earlier. Once in England, The Boss learns that all of the changes which he had made have now fallen under an Interdict of the Catholic Church.
The Boss then makes his way to Camelot. He and Clarence make plans for a final battle against most of England, with only fifty-two of the people whom they trained as helpers. Working from Merlin's cave, they kill twenty-five thousand knights, using electric fencing, Gatling guns, and an ingeniously diverted stream. When The Boss goes out to see if they can give aid to any of those who still survive, one of the wounded enemies stabs him. Luckily, however, the wound is only slight. Yet all is far from being peaceful yet, for Merlin enters the cave in the guise of an old woman and casts a spell on The Boss that makes him sleep for thirteen hundred years. Thus the novel ends with the tourist's reaching The Boss's room just as The Boss dies, calling for Sandy and Hello-Central.
