great thoughts which occurred to him
during the day. He now wrote in them these noble words:

"_Jewels of wisdom may fall from the meanest of hinds._"

He struck a gong to summon the Chancellor into his presence.

"I have a great idea," he told the Chancellor.

The Chancellor hid his surprise and expressed his pleasure.

"To-night I propose to pay a secret visit to his Majesty the King of
Barodia. Which of the many tents yonder have my spies located as the
royal one?"

"The big on in the centre, above which the Royal Arms fly."

"I thought as much. Indeed I have often seen his Majesty entering it.
But one prefers to do these things according to custom. Acting on
the information given me by my trusty spies, I propose to enter the
King of Barodia's tent at the dead of night, and----"

The Chancellor shuddered in anticipation.

"And shave his whiskers off."

The Chancellor trembled with delight.

"Your Majesty," he said in a quavering voice, "forty years, man and
boy, have I served your Majesty, and your Majesty's late lamented
father, and never have I heard such a beautiful plan."

Merriwig struggled with himself for a moment, but his natural honesty
was too much for him.

"It was put into my head by a remark of my Court Barber's," he said
casually. "But of course the actual working out of it has been mine."

"Jewels of wisdom," said the Chancellor sententiously, "may fall from
the meanest of hinds."

"I suppose," said Merriwig, taking up his tablets and absently
scratching out the words written thereon, "there is nothing in the
rules against it?"

"By no means, your Majesty. In the annuals of Euralia there are many
instances of humour similar to that which your Majesty suggests:
humour, if I may say so, which, while evidencing to the ignorant only
the lighter side of war, has its roots in the most fundamental
strategical considerations."

Merriwig regarded him with admiration. This was indeed a Chancellor.

"The very words," he answered, "which I said to myself when the idea
came to me. 'The fact,' I said, 'that this will help us to win the
war, must not disguise from us the fact that the King of Barodia will
look extremely funny without his whiskers.' To-night I shall sally
forth and put my plan into practice."

At midnight, then, he started out. The Chancellor awaited his return
with some anxiety. This might well turn out to be the decisive stroke
(or strokes) of the war. For centur