ur servant speak?" said Leoni humbly.

"Yes. What is it?" was the impatient reply.

"You are going into a strange country to encounter many perils."

"Pooh! Adventures."

"And adventures," said Leoni--"and may meet with injuries, suffer in
your health. Would it not be wise to have the leech in your train?"

"My faith, no!" cried the monarch. "I know you of old, my plotting,
scheming friend. You would be having me ill, stretched upon a pallet,
within a week, and then it is the doctor who becomes the King. I think
we three can manage without your help; but I won't be forgetful of old
services, and I'll trust you in this. There is no such scribe about the
Court as you, so you shall keep a chronicle of everything that happens
here while the cat's away, and read the record of the sporting of my
mice to me on my return. I can trust you to see twice as much as any
other man about the Court, in your double-sighted way."

"Double-sighted suggests duplicity, Sire," said the doctor.

"No, no; I don't mean that," cried the King, "and you know it. If I
thought that you were guilty of duplicity, Leoni, do you think that I
should trust you as I do? There," he continued impatiently, "don't look
at me like that, man. It worries me."

"It is my misfortune, Sire, not my intention."

"Of course. I know; I know. But you look sometimes as if you were
keeping me in conversation with one eye, while the other was seeking how
to take me at a disadvantage."

"That's what people about the Court say, Sire," said the doctor, with a
grim smile.

"Yes, I know," replied the King. "I have heard Saint Simon say so. I
shouldn't have thought of it myself. But it is quite right, all the
same."

"In appearance, Sire; but it is not true."

The King laughed.

"My dear doctor, yes, of course; I know that. Do you know what I lay
and thought once when I was ill?"

"No, Sire; but something wise, no doubt."

"Bah! None of your subtle flattery. No one knows better than I do,
Leoni, that I am not a clever man. What I lay and thought was that you
had studied your two crafts so well that one eye was the window from
which the clever doctor's brain looked out, the other that of the calm,
quiet, thoughtful statesman. I should long to have two such eyes as
yours, Leoni, only that there are the ladies, you know. I don't think
that they would approve, eh, doctor? What is your experience?"

"That your Majesty is quite right," replie