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28 “Well you may be,” said the miserable Monarch; “but if I were to try to tell you all that that bird has brought on my poor kingdom I should keep you up till long past your proper bedtime.”

“I don’t mind,” said Matilda kindly. “Do tell me some more.”

“Why,” the King went on, growing now more agitated, “why, at one titter from that revolting bird the long row of ancestors on my Palace wall grew red-faced and vulgar; they began to drop their H’s and to assert that their name was Smith from Clapham Junction.”

“How dreadful!”

“And once,” said the King in a whimper, “it laughed so loudly that two Sundays came together and next Thursday got lost, and went prowling away and hid itself on the other side of Christmas.”

“And now,” he said suddenly, “it’s bedtime.”

“Must I go?” asked Matilda.

“Yes please,” said the King. “I tell all strangers this tragic story because I always feel that perhaps some stranger might be clever enough to help me. You seem a very nice little girl. Do you think you are clever?”