was, on the contrary, one of the lowliest of the human race;
in fact, he did not wish to conceal it; in spite of his vessel and
his attendants, he was merely a market-gardener on a great scale. This
beautiful fruit he had recently discovered in the East, to which quarter
of the world he annually travelled in order to obtain a sufficient
quantity to supply the great Western hemisphere, of which he himself
was a native. Accident had driven him, with one of his ships, into the
Island of Vraibleusia; and, as the islanders appeared to be pleased with
his cargo, he said that he should have great pleasure in supplying them
at present and receiving their orders for the future.

The proposition was greeted with enthusiasm, The King immediately
entered into a contract with the market-gardener on his own terms.
The sale, or cultivation, or even the eating of all other fruits was
declared high-treason, and pine-apple, for weighty reasons duly recited
in the royal proclamation, announced as the established fruit of the
realm. The cargo, under the superintendence of some of the most trusty
of the crew, was unshipped for the immediate supply of the island; and
the merchant and his customers parted, mutually delighted and mutually
profited.

Time flew on. The civilisation of Vraibleusia was progressive, as
civilisation always is; and the taste for pine-apples ever on the
increase, as the taste for pine-apples ever should be. The supply was
regular and excellent, the prices reasonable, and the tradesmen civil.
They, of course, had not failed to advance in fair proportion with the
national prosperity. Their numbers had much increased as well as their
customers. Fresh agents arrived with every fresh cargo. They had long
quitted the stalls with which they had been contented on their first
settlement in the island, and now were the dapper owners of neat depots
in all parts of the kingdom where depots could find customers.

A few more centuries, and affairs began to change. All that I
have related as matter of fact, and which certainly is not better
authenticated than many other things that happened two or three thousand
years ago, which, however, the most sceptical will not presume to
maintain did not take place, was treated as the most idle and ridiculous
fable by the dealers in pine-apples themselves. They said that they knew
nothing about a market-gardener; that they were, and had always been,
the subjects of the greatest Prince in the