In earlier chapters, the knights have been seen as innocent and delightful children playing games and enjoying life. Now, however, when The Boss puts them between advertising sandwich-boards, they become truly ridiculous. The signs that the knights carry introduce another modern concept — advertising. This particular knight is advertising soap, and the advertising campaign is going so successfully that the workers in The Boss's soap factories are being overworked. Were we to be logical — a fallacy in reading a book such as this — we would have to point out that the advertising campaign could not work since no one except the clergy could read, thereby rendering the campaign unsuccessful. In fact, on this particular point, in Chapter 25 ("The Competitive Examination"), the young men who have been born of royal birth consider it an insult to be asked if they can read or write — that is a trivial task reserved for lowly clerks, and nobility should not be bothered by such trivia.
The entire idea of introducing both soap and advertising was done with the "several wholesome purposes in view toward the civilizing and uplifting of his nation." The irony here, as elsewhere, is that The Boss views civilization only in terms of material progress. This is one of the reasons that Twain refers to him as an "ignoramus."
In his meeting with Morgan le Fay, The Boss is again exposed to contradictory reactions in the same person. He has heard that she hates her brother, King Arthur, and that she is a vicious sorceress. Yet when he meets her, he is charmed by her "manner of pretty graces and graciousness." But when a page slips and falls upon her, she kills him with a dagger without a blink of an eye. From this act of atrocity, she immediately goes to her prayers. The Boss is mystified by this course of events, but he realizes that the Church has such a hold on the people that while the aristocracy can kill commoners at will, they must obey the call of the Church, which has the power to forgive them for their actions.
