ses along the bridge of his nose.

"Colonel Methuselah," he said, incisively biting off his words, "if
you told me anything of the kind I should say that you are what
posterity will probably call a nature faker, and one of a
perniciously invidious sort."

"I can bring affidavits to prove it, Your Majesty," said I.

"It is strange that I have never heard of it before," he mused.

"We are not particularly proud of it," I explained. "One may boast of
the number of Discosauri one finds in one's hunting preserves, or the
marvelous fish in one's lakes, or the birds of wondrous plumage that
dwell in one's forests, but none ever ventures to speak of the number
or quality of rats that infest the locality."

"You say it overtops a pyramid?" he demanded.

"I do," I replied. "The exact estimate of its height is sixteen
thousand nine hundred and sixty-four feet!"

"Great Snakes!" he cried. "Why, he must be a perfect mountain!"

"He is," I replied. "He is so tall that summer and winter the top of
his head is covered with snow."

This was too much for King Ptush. He rose up immediately from his seat
and summoned his entourage.

"You will make ready for a strenuous afternoon," he said to them
sharply. "I am going after the biggest game that history records.
Colonel Methuselah has just told me of a quarry alongside of which all
that we have landed in the past months sinks into insignificance."

"You do well to call it a quarry," I cried. "There never was a
better--and it is only ten miles from here as the griffin flies."

The king's face flushed with joy at the prospect, but suddenly a look
of perplexity came into his eyes.

"By the way," he said, "how shall we bring him down--with a slungshot
or a catapult?"

[Illustration: Gr't. Gr't. Gr't. Grandfather Adam as a
disciplinarian.]

I laughed.

"No ordinary ammunition will serve Your Majesty's purpose here," I
said. "The only thing for you to do is to steal quietly up to him
while he sleeps. Surround him in the silence of some black night, and
build a barbed-wire fence around him. Once you succeed in doing this
he will not try to get away, and you can have him removed at Your
Majesty's pleasure."

"We go at once," cried the king, his enthusiasm aroused to the highest
pitch. "My friends," he added, drawing himself up to the full of his
soldierly height, "we go to capture the--the--the er--by the way,
Colonel, what do you call this creature?"

"The Ararat," I replie