eck. For them the king sent;
and straightway they came. In a long speech he communicated to them what
they knew very well already--as who did not?--namely, the peculiar
condition of his daughter in relation to the globe on which she dwelt;
and requested them to consult together as to what might be the cause and
probable cure of her _infirmity_. The king laid stress upon the word,
but failed to discover his own pun. The queen laughed; but Hum-Drum and
Kopy-Keck heard with humility and retired in silence.

Their consultation consisted chiefly in propounding and supporting, for
the thousandth time, each his favourite theories. For the condition of
the princess afforded delightful scope for the discussion of every
question arising from the division of thought--in fact, of all the
Metaphysics of the Chinese Empire. But it is only justice to say that
they did not altogether neglect the discussion of the practical
question, _what was to be done_.

Hum-Drum was a Materialist, and Kopy-Keck was a Spiritualist. The former
was slow and sententious; the latter was quick and flighty; the latter
had generally the first word; the former the last.

"I reassert my former assertion," began Kopy-Keck, with a plunge. "There
is not a fault in the princess, body or soul; only they are wrong put
together. Listen to me now, Hum-Drum, and I will tell you in brief what
I think. Don't speak. Don't answer me. I _won't_ hear you till I have
done. At that decisive moment, when souls seek their appointed
habitations, two eager souls met, struck, rebounded, lost their way, and
arrived each at the wrong place. The soul of the princess was one of
those, and she went far astray. She does not belong by rights to this
world at all, but to some other planet, probably Mercury. Her proclivity
to her true sphere destroys all the natural influence which this orb
would otherwise possess over her corporeal frame. She cares for nothing
here. There is no relation between her and this world.

"She must therefore be taught, by the sternest compulsion, to take an
interest in the earth as the earth. She must study every department of
its history--its animal history, its vegetable history, its mineral
history, its social history, its moral history, its political history,
its scientific history, its literary history, its musical history, its
artistical history, above all, its metaphysical history. She must begin
with the Chinese dynasty and end with Japan. But first o