the King's Favorite. This,
as all men know, was Preferment, and a sudden wistful longing seized
upon the Fool's heart, that he had never known the like of since the
time he had cried for the moon. His jaw dropped, and his eyes grew
misty. In a little while the troop was by, gone around the hill, but
the Fool could not forget them, and many new desires tugged at his
heart.

"Why," he wondered, "doth not Preferment live with me? Am I not as fit
a man as the King's Favorite?" And he stretched out his long legs and
looked at them.

As long as the Fool was occupied with dreaming and laying the sods on
his house, or hunting for the dun deer of a moonlit night, he was
company enough for himself, turning his fancies over and over in his
mind, as the wind bundles the clouds about the sky; then when he had
arranged his conceptions to his taste, he was free to admire them
undisturbed, until a new fancy happened along to displace them; just
as the wind leaves off driving the clouds at sunset, and in the west
there is a sweet tableau for men to look at, till night blots out the
scene. So the Fool was usually well content to be alone. But when, as
now, he was perplexed by any problem that disturbed his simple
cheerfulness, he had to seek some other and wiser man for counsel, not
being one of those men, more mind than heart, who unravel problems
with as much accuracy and equanimity as a skilful weaver plies his
loom.

So that evening, with the moon sending his shadow out ahead of him,
the Fool walked overfield to the cave of the Wise Man. Timidly
approaching, he peered through the entrance and found the Wise Man
sitting still and alone, gazing into the ashes of a flickering fire.

"Please," said the Fool anxiously, "why does Preferment ride with the
King's Favorite and never with me?"

The other did not stir for a long while, but after the Fool had
shifted several times from one foot to the other, beginning to despair
of an answer, the Wise Man spoke.

"Because," he said slowly, still looking into the fire, "thou hast
never desired him to." And, having spoken, he kept silent, and after a
little the Fool turned away.

"I never desired him to?" he muttered over and over to himself. "What
does that mean?" And he stood stock still and looked about for
explanation; but none was vouchsafed by the moon, or the bushes, or
night itself, the customary adviser of the Fool's doubts and queries.

"How is this?" he said again. "Did the