that?" asked the girl, surprised.

"It is a law of the ocean," declared Anko, "that whoever saves any
living creature from violent death owns that creature forever
afterward, while life lasts. You will realize how just this law is
when you remember that had I not saved you from Zog, you would now
be dead. The law was suggested by Captain Kid Glove, when he once
visited me."

"Do you mean Captain Kidd?" asked Trot. "Because if you do--"

"Give him his full name," said Anko. "Captain Kid Glove was--"

"There's no glove to it," protested Trot. "I ought to know, 'cause
I've read about him."

"Didn't it say anything about a glove?" asked Anko.

"Nothing at all. It jus' called him Cap'n Kidd," replied Trot.

"She's right, ol' man," added Cap'n Bill.

"Books," said the Sea Serpent, "are good enough as far as they go,
but it seems to me your earth books don't go far enough. Captain Kid
Glove was a gentleman pirate, a kid-glove pirate. To leave off the
glove and call him just Kidd is very disrespectful."

"Oh! You told me to remind you of that third pain," said the little
girl.

"Which proves my friendship for you," returned the Sea Serpent,
blinking his blue eyes thoughtfully. "No one likes to be reminded of
a pain, and that third pain was--was--"

"What was it?" asked Trot.

"It was a stomach ache," replied the King with a sigh.

"What made it?" she inquired.

"Just my carelessness," said Anko. "I'd been away to foreign parts,
seeing how the earth people were getting along. I found the Germans
dancing the german and the Dutch making dutch cheese and the
Belgians combing their belgian hares and the Turks eating turkey and
the Sardinians sardonically pickling sardines. Then I called on the
Prince of Whales, and--"

"You mean the Prince of Wales," corrected Trot.

"I mean what I say, my dear. I saw the battlefield where the Bull
Run but the Americans didn't, and when I got to France I paid a
napoleon to see Napoleon with his boney apart. He was--"

"Of course you mean--" Trot was beginning, but the king would not
give her a chance to correct him this time.

"He was very hungry for Hungary," he continued, "and was Russian so
fast toward the Poles that I thought he'd discover them. So as I was
not accorded a royal welcome, I took French leave and came home
again."

"But the pain--"

"On the way home," continued Anko calmly, "I was a little
absent-minded and ate an anchor. There was a long chain attached