ector-General of Public
Education, and he was a royal gift to me and my camp servants. I
expressed my thanks suitably, and asked if I might have audience of
the King. The Prime Minister readjusted his turban, which had fallen
off in the struggle, and assured me that the King would be very
pleased to see me. Therefore, I despatched two bottles as a
foretaste, and when the sheep had entered upon another incarnation
went to the King's Palace through the wet. He had sent his army to
escort me, but the army stayed to talk with my cook. Soldiers are
very much alike all the world over.

The Palace was a four-roomed, and whitewashed mud and timber-house,
the finest in all the hills for a day's journey. The King was dressed
in a purple velvet jacket, white muslin trousers, and a
saffron-yellow turban of price. He gave me audience in a little
carpeted room opening off the palace courtyard which was occupied by
the Elephant of State. The great beast was sheeted and anchored from
trunk to tail, and the curve of his back stood out grandly against
the mist.

The Prime Minister and the Director-General of Public Education were
present to introduce me, but all the court had been dismissed, lest
the two bottles aforesaid should corrupt their morals. The King cast
a wreath of heavy-scented flowers round my neck as I bowed, and
inquired how my honoured presence had the felicity to be. I said that
through seeing his auspicious countenance the mists of the night had
turned into sunshine, and that by reason of his beneficent sheep his
good deeds would be remembered by the Gods. He said that since I had
set my magnificent foot in his Kingdom the crops would probably
yield seventy per cent. more than the average. I said that the fame
of the King had reached to the four corners of the earth, and that
the nations gnashed their teeth when they heard daily of the glories
of his realm and the wisdom of his moon-like Prime Minister and
lotus-like Director-General of Public Education.

Then we sat down on clean white cushions, and I was at the King's
right hand. Three minutes later he was telling me that the state of
the maize crop was something disgraceful, and that the Railway
companies would not pay him enough for his timber. The talk shifted
to and fro with the bottles, and we discussed very many stately
things, and the King became confidential on the subject of Government
generally. Most of all he dwelt on the shortcomings of one of his
su