Page:Lieut Gullivar Jones - His Vacation - Edwin Arnold (1905).djvu/41

 "Let's drop personalities, old chap—I mean my dear Miss An. Tell me something about your people, and let us begin properly at the top: have you got a king, for instance?"

To this the girl, pulling herself out of the pleasant slough of her listlessness, and falling into my vein, answered—

"Both yes and no, sir traveller from afar—no chiefly, and yet perhaps yes. If it were no then it were so, and if yes then Hath were our king."

"A mild king I should judge by your uncertainty. In the place where I came from kings press their individualities somewhat more clearly on their subjects' minds. Is Hath here in the city? Does he come to your feasts to-day?"

An nodded. Hath was on the river, he had been to see the sunrise; even now she thought the laughter and singing down behind the bend might be the king's barge coming up citywards. "He will not be late," said my companion, "because the marriage-feast is set for to-morrow in the palace."

I became interested. Kings, palaces, marriage-feasts—why, here was something substantial to go upon; after all these gauzy folk might turn out good fellows, jolly comrades to sojourn amongst—and marriage-feasts reminded me again I was hungry.

"Who is it," I asked, with more interest in my