Page:Frank Stockton - Vizier of the two-horned Alexander.djvu/88

THE VIZIER OF THE lived happily for many years in Phenicia, was quite as beautiful. I was greatly inclined, at the time, to send a courier with a letter to the Queen of Sheba, informing her of what had happened; but I was afraid. She was then an elderly woman, and I was informed that age had actually sharpened her wits, so that if I had incensed her and given her reason to suspect the truth about my unnatural age, I believe there was no known country in which I could have concealed myself from her emissaries.

"There are many, many incidents which crowd upon my memory," continued my host, "but—" and as he spoke he pulled out his watch. "My conscience!" he exclaimed, "it is twenty minutes past three! I should be ashamed of myself, Mr. Randolph, for having kept you up so long."

We both rose to our feet, and I was about to say something polite, suited to the occasion, but he gave me no chance.

"I felt I must talk to you," he said, speaking very rapidly. "I have discovered you to be a man of appreciation—a man who should hear my story. I have felt for some years,