if you had been willing to wait for thirteen years, you and Phedo
might have fought on equal terms. As it is now, it would have been as
hard for him to conquer you, as for you to conquer the syndicate. The
odds would have been quite as great."
"Don't mention it," said Alberdin. "I prefer things as they are. I
should have hated to drive the boy away, and deprive him of a
position which the people wish him to have. Now we are all
satisfied."
Phedo soon began to show signs that he would probably make a very
good Autocrat. He declared that if he was to be assisted by ministers
and cabinet officers when he came to the throne, he would like them
to be persons who had been educated for their positions, just as he
was to be educated for his own. Consequently he chose for the head of
his cabinet a bright and sensible boy, and had him educated as a
Minister of State. For Minister of Finance, he chose another boy with
a very honest countenance, and for the other members of his cabinet,
suitable youths were selected. He also said, that he thought there
ought to be another officer, one who would be a sort of Minister of
General Comfort, who would keep an eye on the health and happiness of
the subjects, and would also see that every thing went all right in
the palace, not only in regard to meals, but lots of other things.
For this office he chose a bright young girl, and had her educated
for the position of Queen.
THE BANISHED KING.
* * * * *
There was once a kingdom in which every thing seemed to go wrong.
Everybody knew this, and everybody talked about it, especially the
King. The bad state of affairs troubled him more than it did any one
else, but he could think of no way to make them better.
"I cannot bear to see things going on so badly," he said to the Queen
and his chief councillors. "I wish I knew how other kingdoms were
governed."
One of his councillors offered to go to some other countries, and see
how they were governed, and come back and tell him all about it, but
this did not suit his majesty.
"You would simply return," he said, "and give me your ideas about
things. I want my own ideas."
The Queen then suggested that he should take a vacation, and visit
other kingdoms, and see for himself how things were managed in them.
This did not suit the king. "A vacation would not answer," he said.
"I should not be gone a week before something would happen here which
would make it necessary for me to come back."
The Queen then suggested that he be banished for a certain time, say
a year. In that case he could not come back, and would be at full
liberty to visit foreign kingdoms, and find out how they were
governed.
This plan pleased the King. "If it were made impossible for me to
come back," he said, "of course I could not do it. The scheme is a
good one. Let me be banished." And he gave orders that his council
should pass a law banishing him for one year.
Preparations were immediately begun to carry out this plan, and in
day or two the King bade farewell to the Queen, and left his kingdom,
a banished man. He went away on foot, entirely unattended. But, as he
did not wish to cut off all communication between himself and his
kingdom, he made an arrangement which he thought a very good one. At
easy shouting distance behind him walked one of the officers of the
court, and at shouting distance behind him walked another, and so on
at distances of about a hundred yards from each other. In this way
there would always be a line of men extending from the King to his
palace. Whenever the King had walked a hundred yards the line moved
on after him, and another officer was put in the gap between the last
man and the palace door. Thus, as the King walked on, his line of
followers lengthened, and was never broken. Whenever he had any
message to send to the Queen, or any other person in the palace, he
shouted it to the officer next him, who shouted it to the one next to
him, and it was so passed on until it reached the palace. If he
needed food, clothes, or any other necessary thing, the order for it
was shouted along the line, and the article was passed to him from
man to man, each one carrying it forward to his neighbor, and then
retiring to his proper place.
In this way the King walked on day by day until he had passed
entirely out of his own kingdom. At night he stopped at some
convenient house on the road, and if any of his followers did not
find himself near a house or cottage when the King shouted back the
order to halt, he laid himself down to sleep wherever he might be. By
this time the increasing line of followers had used up all the
officers of the court, and it became necessary to draw upon some of
the under government officers in order to keep the line perfect.
The King had not gone very far outside the limits of his dominions
when he met a Sphinx. He had often heard of these creatures, although
he had never seen one before. But when he saw the winged body of a
lion with a woman's head, he knew instantly what it was. He knew,
also, that the chief business of a Sphinx was that of asking people
questions, and then getting them into trouble if the right answers
were not given. He therefore determined that he would not be caught
by any such tricks as these, and that he would be on his guard if the
Sphinx spoke to him. The creature was lying down when the King first
saw it, but when he approached nearer it rose to its feet. There was
nothing savage about its look, and the King was not at all afraid.
"Where are you going?" said the Sphinx to him, in a pleasant voice.
"Give it up," replied the King.
"What do you mean by that?" said the other, with an air of surprise.
"I give that up, too," said the King.
The Sphinx then looked at him quite astonished.
"I don't mind telling you," said the King, "of my own free will, and
not in answer to any questions, that I do not know where I am going.
I am a King, as you may have noticed, and I have been banished from
my kingdom for a year. I am now going to look into the government of
other countries in order that I may find out what it is that is wrong
in my own kingdom. Every thing goes badly, and there is something
very faulty at the bottom of it all. What this is I want to
discover."
"I am much interested in puzzles and matters of that kind," said the
Sphinx, "and if you like I will go with you and help to find out what
is wrong in your kingdom."
"All right," said the King. "I shall be glad of your company."
"What is the meaning of this long line of people following you at
regular distances?" asked the Sphinx.
"Give it up," said the King.
The Sphinx laughed.
"I don't mind telling you," said the King, "of my own free will, and
not in answer to any question, that these men form a line of
communication between me and my kingdom, where matters, I fear, must
be going on worse than ever, in my absence."
The two now travelled on together until they came to a high hill,
from which they could see, not very far away, a large city.
"That city," said the Sphinx, "is the capital of an extensive
country. It is governed by a king of mingled sentiments. Suppose we
go there. I think you will find a government that is rather
peculiar."
The King consented, and they walked down the hill toward the city.
"How did the King get his sentiments mingled?" asked the King.
"I really don't know how it began," said the Sphinx, "but the King,
when a young man, had so many sentiments of different kinds, and he
mingled them up so much, that no one could ever tell exactly what he
thought on any particular subject. Of course, his people gradually
got into the same frame of mind, and you never can know in this
kingdom exactly what people think or what they are going to do. You
will find all sorts of people here: giants, dwarfs, fairies, gnomes,
and personages of that kind, who have been drawn here by the mingled
sentiments of the people. I, myself, came into these parts because
the people every now and then take a great fancy to puzzles and
riddles."
On entering the city, the King was cordially welcomed by his brother
sovereign, to whom he told his story; and he was lodged in a room in
the palace. Such of his followers as came within the limits of the
city were entertained by the persons near to whose houses they found
themselves when the line halted.
Every day the Sphinx went with him to see the sights of this strange
city. They took long walks through the streets, and sometimes into
the surrounding country--always going one way and returning another,
the Sphinx being very careful never to bring the King back by the
same road or street by which they went. In this way the King's line
of followers, which, of course, lengthened out every time he took a
walk, came to be arranged in long loops through many parts of the
city and suburbs.
Many of the things the King saw showed plainly the mingled sentiments
of the people. For instance, he would one day visit a great smith's
shop, where heavy masses of iron were being forged, the whole place
resounding with tremendous blows from heavy hammers, and the clank
and din of iron on the anvils; while the next day he would find the
place transformed into a studio, where the former blacksmith was
painting dainty little pictures on the delicate surface of
egg-shells. The king of the country, in his treatment of his visitor,
showed his peculiar nature very plainly. Sometimes he would receive
him with enthusiastic delight, while at others he would upbraid him
with having left his dominions to go wandering around the earth in
this senseless way. One day his host invited him to attend a royal
dinner, but, when he went to the grand dining-hall, pleased with
anticipations of a splendid feast, he found that the sentiments of
his majesty had become mingled, and that he had determined, instead
of having a dinner, to conduct the funeral services of one of his
servants who had died the day before. All the guests were obliged by
politeness to remain during the ceremonies, which our King, not
having been acquainted with the deceased servant, had not found at
all interesting.
"Now," said the King to the Sphinx, "I am in favor of moving on. I am
tired of this place, where every sentiment is so mingled with others
that you can never tell what anybody really thinks or feels. I don't
believe any one in this country was ever truly glad or sorry. They
mix one sentiment so quickly with another that they never can
discover the actual ingredients of any of their impulses."
"When this King first began to mingle his sentiments," said the
Sphinx, "it was because he always desired to think and feel exactly
right. He did not wish his feelings to run too much one way or the
other."
"And so he is never either right or wrong," said the King. "I don't
like that, at all. I want to be one thing or the other."
"I have wasted a good deal of time at this place," remarked the King,
as they walked on, "and I have seen and heard nothing which I wish to
teach my people. But I must find out some way to prevent every thing
going wrong in my kingdom. I have tried plan after plan, and
sometimes two or three together, and have kept this up year after
year, and yet nothing seems to do my kingdom any good."
"Have you heard how things are going on there now?" asked the Sphinx.
"Give it up," said the King. "But I don't mind saying of my own
accord, and not as answer to any question, that I have sent a good
many communications to my Queen, but have never received any from
her. So I do not know how things are going on in my kingdom."
They then travelled on, the long line of followers coming after,
keeping their relative positions a hundred yards apart, and passing
over all the ground the King had traversed in his circuitous walks
about the city. Thus the line crept along like an enormous snake in
straight lines, loops, and coils; and every time the King walked a
hundred yards a fresh man from his capital city was obliged to take
his place at the tail of the procession.
"By the way," said the Sphinx, after they had walked an hour or more,
"if you want to see a kingdom where there really is something to
learn, you ought to go to the country of the Gaumers, which we are
now approaching."
"All right," said the King. "Let us go there."
In the course of the afternoon they reached the edge of a high bluff.
"On the level ground, beneath this precipice," said the Sphinx, "is
the country of the dwarfs called Gaumers. You can sit on the edge of
the bluff and look down upon it."
The King and the Sphinx then sat down, and looked out from the edge
over the country of the little people. The officer of the court who
had formed the head of the line wished very much to see what they
were looking at, but, when the line halted, he was not near enough.
"You will notice," said the Sphinx, "that the little houses and huts
are gathered together in clusters. Each one of these clusters is
under a separate king."
"Why don't they all live under one ruler?" asked the King. "That is
the proper way."
"They do not think so," said the Sphinx. "In each of these clusters
live the Gaumers who are best suited to each other; and, if any
Gaumer finds he cannot get along in one cluster, he goes to another.
The kings are chosen from among the very best of them, and each one
is always very anxious to please his subjects. He knows that every
thing that he, and his queen, and his children eat, or drink, or
wear, or have must be given to him by his subjects, and if it were
not for them he could not be their ruler. And so he does every thing
that he can to make them happy and contented, for he knows if he does
not please them and govern them well, they will gradually drop off
from him and go to other clusters, and he will be left without any
people or any kingdom."
"That is a very queer way of ruling," said the King. "I think the
people ought to try to please their sovereign."
"He is only one, and they are a great many," said the Sphinx.
"Consequently they are much more important. No subject is ever
allowed to look down upon a king, simply because he helps to feed and
clothe him, and send his children to school. If any one does a thing
of this kind, he is banished until he learns better."
"All that may be very well for Gaumers," said the King, "but I can
learn nothing from a government like that, where every thing seems to
be working in an opposite direction from what everybody knows is
right and proper. A king anxious to deserve the good opinion of his
subjects! What nonsense! It ought to be just the other way. The ideas
of this people are as dwarfish as their bodies."
The King now arose and took up the line of march, turning away from
the country of the Gaumers. But he had not gone more than two or
three hundred yards before he received a message from the Queen. It
came to him very rapidly, every man in the line seeming anxious to
shout it to the man ahead of him as quickly as possible. The message
was to the effect that he must either stop where he was or come home:
his constantly lengthening line of communication had used up all the
chief officers of the government, all the clerks in the departments,
and all the officials of every grade, excepting the few who were
actually needed to carry on the government, and if any more men went
into the line it would be necessary to call upon the laborers and
other persons who could not be spared.
"I think," said the Sphinx, "that you have made your line long
enough."
"And I think," said the King. "that you made it a great deal longer
than it need to have been, by taking me about in such winding ways."
"It may be so," said the Sphinx, with its mystic smile.
"Well, I am not going to stop here," said the King, "and so I might
as well go back as soon as I can." And he shouted to the head man of
the line to pass on the order that his edict of banishment be
revoked.
In a very short time the news came that the edict was revoked. The
King then commanded that the procession return home, tail-end
foremost. The march was at once begun, each man, as he reached the
city, going immediately to his home and family.
The King and the greater part of the line had a long and weary
journey, as they followed each other through the country and over the
devious ways in which the Sphinx had led them in the City of Mingled
Sentiments. The King was obliged to pursue all these complicated
turnings, or be separated from his officers, and so break up his
communication with his palace. The Sphinx accompanied him.
When at last, he reached his palace, his line of former followers
having apparently melted entirely away, he hurried up-stairs to the
Queen, leaving the Sphinx in the court-yard.
The King found, when he had time to look into the affairs of his
dominions, that every thing was in the most admirable condition. The
Queen had retained a few of the best officials to carry on the
government, and had ordered the rest to fall, one by one, into the
line of communication. The King set himself to work to think about
the matter. It was not long before he came to the conclusion that the
main thing which had been wrong in his kingdom was himself. He was so
greatly impressed with this idea that he went down to the court-yard
to speak to the Sphinx about it.
"I dare say you are right," said the Sphinx, "and I don't wonder that
what you learned when you were away, and what you have seen since you
came back, have made you feel certain that you were the cause of
every thing going wrong in this kingdom. And now, what do you intend
to do about your government?"
"Give it up," promptly replied the King.
"That is exactly what I should advise," said the Sphinx.
The King did give up his kingdom. He was convinced that being a King
was exactly the thing he was not suited for, and that he would get on
much better in some other business or profession. He determined to be
a traveller and explorer, and to go abroad into other countries to
find out things that might be useful to his own nation. His Queen had
shown that she could govern the country most excellently, and it was
not at all necessary for him to stay at home. She had ordered all the
men who had made up his line to follow the King's example and to go
into some good business; in order that not being bothered with so
many officers, she would be able to get along quite easily.
The King was very successful in his new pursuit, and although he did
not this time have a line of followers connecting him with the
palace, he frequently sent home messages which were of use and value
to his nation.
"I may as well retire," said the Sphinx to itself. "As the King has
found his vocation and every thing is going all right it is not
necessary I should remain where I may be looked upon as a
questionable personage."
THE PHILOPENA.
* * * * *
There were once a Prince and a Princess who, when quite young, ate a
philopena together. They agreed that the one who, at any hour after
sunrise the next day, should accept any thing from the other--the
giver at the same time saying "Philopena!"--should be the loser, and
that the loser should marry the other.
They did not meet as soon as they had expected the next day; and at
the time our story begins, many years had elapsed since they had seen
each other, and the Prince and the Princess were nearly grown up.
They often thought of the philopena they had eaten together, and
wondered if they should know each other when they met. He remembered
her as a pretty little girl dressed in green silk and playing with a
snow-white cat; while she remembered him as a handsome boy, wearing a
little sword, the handle of which was covered with jewels. But they
knew that each must have changed a great deal in all this time.
Neither of these young people had any parents; the Prince lived with
guardians and the Princess with uncles.
The guardians of the Prince were very enterprising and energetic men,
and were allowed to govern the country until the Prince came of age.
The capital city was a very fine city when the old king died; but the
guardians thought it might be much finer, so they set to work with
all their might and main to improve it. They tore down old houses and
made a great many new streets; they built grand and splendid bridges
over the river on which the city stood; they constructed aqueducts to
bring water from streams many miles away; and they were at work all
the time upon some extensive building enterprise.
The Prince did not take much interest in the works which were going
on under direction of his guardians; and when he rode out, he
preferred to go into the country or to ride through some of the
quaint old streets, where nothing had been changed for hundreds of
years.
The uncles of the Princess were very different people from the
guardians of the Prince. There were three of them, and they were very
quiet and cosey old men, who disliked any kind of bustle or
disturbance, and wished that every thing might remain as they had
always known it. It even worried them a little to find that the
Princess was growing up. They would have much preferred that she
should remain exactly as she was when they first took charge of her.
Then they never would have been obliged to trouble their minds about
any changes in the manner of taking care of her. But they did not
worry their minds very much, after all. They wished to make her
guardianship as little laborious or exhausting as possible, and so,
divided the work; one of them took charge of her education, another
of her food and lodging, and the third of her dress. The first sent
for teachers, and told them to teach her; the second had handsome
apartments prepared for her use, and gave orders that she should have
every thing she needed to eat and drink; while the third commanded
that she should have a complete outfit of new clothes four times a
year. Thus every thing went on very quietly and smoothly; and the
three uncles were not obliged to exhaust themselves by hard work.
There were never any new houses built in that city, and if any thing
had to be repaired, it was done with as little noise and dirt as
possible. The city and the whole kingdom were quiet and serene, and
the three uncles dozed away most of the day in three great
comfortable thrones.
Everybody seemed satisfied with this state of things except the
Princess. She often thought to herself that nothing would be more
delightful than a little noise and motion, and she wondered if the
whole world were as quiet as the city in which she lived. At last,
she became unable to bear the dreadful stillness of the place any
longer; but she could think of nothing to do but to go and try to
find the Prince with whom she had eaten a philopena. If she should
win, he must marry her; and then, perhaps, they could settle down in
some place where things would be bright and lively. So, early one
morning, she put on her white dress, and mounting her prancing black
horse, she rode away from the city. Only one person saw her go, for
nearly all the people were asleep.
About this time, the Prince made up his mind that he could no longer
stand the din and confusion, the everlasting up-setting and
setting-up in his native city. He would go away, and see if he could
find the Princess with whom he had eaten a philopena. If he should
win, she would be obliged to marry him; and then, perhaps, they could
settle down in some place where it was quiet and peaceful. So, on the
same morning in which the Princess rode away, he put on a handsome
suit of black clothes, and mounting a gentle white horse, he rode out
of the city. Only one person saw him go; for, even at that early
hour, the people were so busy that little attention was paid to his
movements.
About half way between these two cities, in a tall tower which stood
upon a hill, there lived an Inquisitive Dwarf, whose whole object in
life was to find out what people were doing and why they did it. From
the top of this tower he generally managed to see all that was going
on in the surrounding country; and in each of the two cities that
have been mentioned he had an agent, whose duty it was to send him
word, by means of carrier pigeons, whenever a new thing happened.
Before breakfast, on the morning when the Prince and Princess rode
away, a pigeon from the city of the Prince came flying to the tower
of the Inquisitive Dwarf.
"Some new building started, I suppose," said the Dwarf, as he took
the little roll of paper from under the pigeon's wing. "But no; it is
very different! 'The Prince has ridden away from the city alone, and
is travelling to the north.'"
But before he could begin to puzzle his brains about the meaning of
this departure, another pigeon came flying in from the city of the
Princess.