Page:The queen's museum, and other fanciful tales.djvu/49

 'Tell me how you came to know what it was that would interest my people.'

'I asked them,' said the Stranger. 'That is to say, I arranged that they should be asked.'

'That was well done,' said the Queen; 'but it is a great pity that my long labors in their behalf should have been lost. For many years I have been a collector of button-holes; and there was nothing valuable or rare in the line of my studies of which I had not an original specimen or a facsimile. My agents brought me from foreign lands, even from the most distant islands of the sea, button-holes of every kind; in silk, in wool, in cloth of gold, in every imaginable material, and of those which could not be obtained careful copies were made. There was not a duplicate specimen in the whole collection; only one of each kind; nothing repeated.