he present----

Yes, Sire, for the present, let us attend to business.

Business, Vizier! I have no time for business. Send for the
Pundit. Send for Sruti-bhushan.

But, Sire, the General----

The General?--No, no, not the General. Send for the Pundit.

But, the news from the frontier----

Vizier, the news has come to me from the last great frontier of
all, the frontier of Death. Send for the Pundit.

But if Your Majesty will give me one moment, the Ambassador from
the great Emperor of China----

Vizier, a greater Emperor has sent his embassy to me. Call
Sruti-bhushan.

Very well, Sire. But your father-in-law----

It is not my father-in-law whom I want now. Send for the Pundit.

But, if it please you to hear me this once. The poet,
Kabi-shekhar, is waiting with his new book called the _Garden of
Poesy_.

Let your poet disport himself, jumping about on the topmost
branches of his Garden of Poesy, but send for the Pundit.

Very well, Sire. I will send for him at once.

Tell him to bring his book of devotions with him, called the
_Ocean of Renunciation_.

Yes, Sire.

But, Vizier. Who are those outside making all that noise? Go out
and stop them at once. I must have peace.

If it please Your Majesty, there is a famine in Nagapatam and the
headmen of the villages are praying to be allowed to see your
face.

My time is short, Vizier. I must have peace.

They say their time is shorter. They are at death's door. They,
too, want peace,--peace from the burning of hunger.

Vizier! The burning of hunger is quenched at last on the funeral
pyre.

Then these wretched people----

Wretched!--Listen to the advice of a wretched King to his
wretched subjects. It is futile to be impatient, and try to break
through the net of the inexorable Fisherman. Sooner or later,
Death the Fisherman will have his haul.

Well then?

Let me have the Pundit, and his _Book of Renunciation_.

And in this scarcity----

Vizier! The real scarcity is of time, and not of food. We are all
suffering from starvation of time. None of us has enough of it,
neither the King, nor his people.

Then----

Then know, that our petitions for more time will all go to the
last fire of doom. So why strain our voice in prayer?--Ah, here
is Sruti-bhushan at last. My reverence to you.

Pundit, do tell the King that the Goddess of Fortune deserts him
who gives way to melancholy.

Sruti-bhushan, what is my Vizier whispering to you?

He tel