that Gulliver had
offended the Queen by a well-meant, but badly-managed, effort to do
her a service, and thus he lost also her friendship. But though he was
now out of favor at court, he was still an object of great interest to
every one.

V

GULLIVER'S ESCAPE FROM LILLIPUT AND RETURN TO ENGLAND

Gulliver had three hundred cooks to dress his food and these men, with
their families, lived in small huts which had been built for them near
his house.

He had made for himself a chair and a table. On to this table it was
his custom to lift twenty waiters, and these men then drew up by ropes
and pulleys all his food, and his wine in casks, which one hundred
other servants had in readiness on the ground. Gulliver would often
eat his meal with many hundreds of people looking on.

One day the King, who had not seen him eat since this table had been
built, sent a message that he and the Queen desired to be present that
day while Gulliver dined. They arrived just before his dinner hour,
and he at once lifted the King and Queen and the Princes, with their
attendants and guards, on to the table.

Their Majesties sat in their chairs of state all the time, watching
with deep interest the roasts of beef and mutton, and whole flocks of
geese and turkeys and fowls disappear into Gulliver's mouth. A roast
of beef of which he had to make more than two mouthfuls was seldom
seen, and he ate them bones and all. A goose or a turkey was but one
bite.

Certainly, on this occasion, Gulliver ate more than usual, thinking by
so doing to amuse and please the court.

But in this he erred, for it was turned against him. Flimnap, the Lord
High Treasurer, who had always been one of his enemies, pointed out to
the King the great daily expense of such meals, and told how this huge
man had already cost the country over a million and a half of _sprugs_
(the largest Lilliputian gold coin). Things, indeed, were beginning to
go very ill with Gulliver.

Now it happened about this time that one of the King's courtiers, to
whom Gulliver had been very kind, came to him by night very privately
in a closed chair, and asked to have a talk, without any one else
being present.

Gulliver gave to a servant whom he could trust orders that no one else
was to be admitted, and having put the courtier and his chair upon the
table, so that he might better hear all that was said, he sat down to
listen.

Gulliver was told that there had lately been severa