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Rh CHAPTER XIII

first thing I did after the genuine princess Crystallina had left me was to seek out Doctor Nebulosus and learn from him the exact number of hours before the queen's heart would run down.

As he had just been making an examination, he was able to tell the very minute: it was seventeen hours and thirteen minutes, rather a short time you must confess, dear friends, in which to accomplish such an important piece of business as I had in mind. I then made my way directly to the royal palace and demanded a private audience with the Lady of the Crystal Throne.

With the advice of Sir Amber O'Pake and Lord Cornucore she firmly but graciously refused to receive me, giving as an excuse that the excitement that would be sure to follow an interview with the "Man of Coal"—so the Mikkamenkies had named me—would shorten her life at least thirteen minutes.

But I was not to be put off in so unceremonious a manner.

Sitting down, I seized a pen and wrote the following words upon a piece of glazed silk:—

"To Galaxa, Queen of the Mikkamenkies, Lady of the Crystal Throne.

"I, Lord Bulger, a Mikkamenkian Noble, Bearer of this, who was the first to discover that the real princess was not sitting on