the matter with great care.

Meantime Rinkitink had risen from his bed and walked out upon the lawn,
where he found Bilbil reclining at ease upon the greensward.

"Where is Inga?" asked Rinkitink, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles
because their vision was blurred with too much sleep.

"Don't ask me," said the goat, chewing with much satisfaction a cud of
sweet grasses.

"Bilbil," said the King, squatting down beside the goat and resting his
fat chin upon his hands and his elbows on his knees, "allow me to
confide to you the fact that I am bored, and need amusement. My good
friend Kitticut has been kidnapped by the barbarians and taken from me,
so there is no one to converse with me intelligently. I am the King and
you are the goat. Suppose you tell me a story.

"Suppose I don't," said Bilbil, with a scowl, for a goat's face is very
expressive.

"If you refuse, I shall be more unhappy than ever, and I know your
disposition is too sweet to permit that. Tell me a story, Bilbil."

The goat looked at him with an expression of scorn. Said he:

"One would think you are but four years old, Rinkitink! But there--I
will do as you command. Listen carefully, and the story may do you some
good--although I doubt if you understand the moral."

"I am sure the story will do me good," declared the King, whose eyes
were twinkling.

"Once on a time," began the goat.

"When was that, Bilbil?" asked the King gently.

"Don't interrupt; it is impolite. Once on a time there was a King with
a hollow inside his head, where most people have their brains, and--"

"Is this a true story, Bilbil?"

"And the King with a hollow head could chatter words, which had no
sense, and laugh in a brainless manner at senseless things. That part
of the story is true enough, Rinkitink."

"Then proceed with the tale, sweet Bilbil. Yet it is hard to believe
that any King could be brainless--unless, indeed, he proved it by
owning a talking goat."

Bilbil glared at him a full minute in silence. Then he resumed his
story:

"This empty-headed man was a King by accident, having been born to that
high station. Also the King was empty-headed by the same chance, being
born without brains."

"Poor fellow!" quoth the King. "Did he own a talking goat?"

"He did," answered Bilbil.

"Then he was wrong to have been born at all. Cheek-eek-eek-eek, oo,
hoo!" chuckled Rinkitink, his fat body shaking with merriment. "But
it's hard to prevent oneself from be