hings.
For this office he chose a bright young girl, and had her educated
for the position of Queen.

THE BANISHED KING.

* * * * *

There was once a kingdom in which every thing seemed to go wrong.
Everybody knew this, and everybody talked about it, especially the
King. The bad state of affairs troubled him more than it did any one
else, but he could think of no way to make them better.

"I cannot bear to see things going on so badly," he said to the Queen
and his chief councillors. "I wish I knew how other kingdoms were
governed."

One of his councillors offered to go to some other countries, and see
how they were governed, and come back and tell him all about it, but
this did not suit his majesty.

"You would simply return," he said, "and give me your ideas about
things. I want my own ideas."

The Queen then suggested that he should take a vacation, and visit
other kingdoms, and see for himself how things were managed in them.

This did not suit the king. "A vacation would not answer," he said.
"I should not be gone a week before something would happen here which
would make it necessary for me to come back."

The Queen then suggested that he be banished for a certain time, say
a year. In that case he could not come back, and would be at full
liberty to visit foreign kingdoms, and find out how they were
governed.

This plan pleased the King. "If it were made impossible for me to
come back," he said, "of course I could not do it. The scheme is a
good one. Let me be banished." And he gave orders that his council
should pass a law banishing him for one year.

Preparations were immediately begun to carry out this plan, and in
day or two the King bade farewell to the Queen, and left his kingdom,
a banished man. He went away on foot, entirely unattended. But, as he
did not wish to cut off all communication between himself and his
kingdom, he made an arrangement which he thought a very good one. At
easy shouting distance behind him walked one of the officers of the
court, and at shouting distance behind him walked another, and so on
at distances of about a hundred yards from each other. In this way
there would always be a line of men extending from the King to his
palace. Whenever the King had walked a hundred yards the line moved
on after him, and another officer was put in the gap between the last
man and the palace door. Thus, as the King walked on, his line of
follo