*

It is well understood in Olympus that Porkins must not be disappointed.
What will happen to him in the next world I do not know, but it will be
something extremely humorous; in this world, however, he is to have all
that he wants. Accordingly the gods got to work.

In the little village of Ospovat, which is in the south-eastern corner
of Ruritania, there lived a maiden called Maria Strultz, who was engaged
to marry Captain Tomsk.

"I fancy," said one of the gods, "that it might be rather funny if Maria
jilted the Captain. I have an idea that it would please Porkins."

"Whatever has Maria--" began a very young god, but he was immediately
suppressed.

"Really," said the other, "I should have thought it was sufficiently
obvious. You know what these mortals are." He looked round to them all.
"Is it agreed then?"

It was agreed.

So Maria Strultz jilted the Captain.

Now this, as you may imagine, annoyed Captain Tomsk. He commanded a
frontier fort on the boundary between Ruritania and Essenland, and his
chief amusement in a dull life was to play cards with the Essenland
captain, who commanded the fort on the other side of the river. When
Maria's letter came he felt that the only thing to do was to drown
himself; on second thoughts he decided to drown his sorrows first. He
did this so successfully that at the end of the evening he was convinced
that it was not Maria who had jilted him, but the Essenland captain who
had jilted Maria; whereupon he rowed across the river and poured his
revolver into the Essenland flag which was flying over the fort. Maria
thus revenged, he went home to bed, and woke next morning with a bad
headache.

(_"Now we're off," said the gods in Olympus._)

In Diedeldorf, the capital of Essenland, the leader-writers proceeded to
remove their coats.

"The blood of every true Essenlander," said the leader-writer of the
_Diedeldorf Patriot_, after sending out for another pot of beer, "will
boil when it hears of this fresh insult to our beloved flag, an insult
which can only be wiped out with blood." Then seeing that he had two
"bloods" in one sentence, he crossed the second one out, substituted
"the sword," and lit a fresh cigarette. "For years Essenland has writhed
under the provocations of Ruritania, but has preserved a dignified
silence; this last insult is more than flesh and blood can stand."
Another "blood" had got in, but it was a new sentence and he thought it
might be allowed to