Page:The bee-man of Orn, and other fanciful tales.djvu/175

 Rh 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 messsge 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."