"Of course," the Jumjum continued, "all this would greatly have enhanced
the cost of gootles, thereby lessening the sales, thereby reducing the
output, thereby throwing a number of workmen out of employment. You see
this, do you not, O guest of my country?"
"Pray tell me," I said, "what became of the reformer who proposed all this
change?"
"All this change? Why, sir, the one-thousandth part is not told: he
proposed that his system should be general: not only in the gootle trust,
but every trust in the country was to be broken up in the same way! When I
had him before me, and had stated my objections to the plan, I asked him
what were its advantages.
"'Sir,' he replied, 'I speak for millions of gentlemen in uncongenial
employments, mostly manual and fatiguing. This would give them the kind of
activity that they would like--such as their class enjoys in other
countries where my system is in full flower, and where it is deemed so
sacred that any proposal for its abolition or simplification by trusts is
regarded with horror, especially by the working men.'
"Having reported to the Panjandrum (whose vermiform appendix may good
angels have in charge) and received his orders, I called the reformer
before me and addressed him thus:
"'Illustrious economist, I have the honor to inform you that in the royal
judgment your proposal is the most absurd, impudent and audacious ever
made; that the system which you propose to set up is revolutionary and
mischievous beyond the dreams of treason; that only in a nation of rogues
and idiots could it have a moment's toleration.'
"He was about to reply, but cutting his throat to intimate that the
hearing was at an end, I withdrew from the Hall of Audience, as under
similar circumstances I am about to do now."
I withdrew first by way of a window, and after a terrible journey of six
years in the Dolorous Mountains and on the Desert of Despair came to the
western coast. Here I built a ship and after a long voyage landed on one
of the islands constituting the Kingdom of Tortirra.