'Why are you silent? What is your handicraft?'

And the seventh Simon answered: 'I have no handicraft, O king; I have
learnt nothing. I could not manage it. And if I do know how to do
anything it is not what might properly be called a real trade--it is
rather a sort of performance; but it is one which no one--not the king
himself--must watch me doing, and I doubt whether this performance of
mine would please your Majesty.'

'Come, come,' cried the king; 'I will have no excuses, what is this
trade?'

'First, sire, give me your royal word that you will not kill me when I
have told you. Then you shall hear.'

'So be it, then; I give you my royal word.'

Then the seventh Simon stepped back a little, cleared his throat, and
said: 'My trade, King Archidej, is of such a kind that the man who
follows it in your kingdom generally loses his life and has no hopes of
pardon. There is only one thing I can do really well, and that is--to
steal, and to hide the smallest scrap of anything I have stolen. Not
the deepest vault, even if its lock were enchanted, could prevent my
stealing anything out of it that I wished to have.'

When the king heard this he fell into a passion. 'I will not pardon
you, you rascal,' he cried; 'I will shut you up in my deepest dungeon on
bread and water till you have forgotten such a trade. Indeed, it would
be better to put you to death at once, and I've a good mind to do so.'

'Don't kill me, O king! I am really not as bad as you think. Why, had I
chosen, I could have robbed the royal treasury, have bribed your judges
to let me off, and built a white marble palace with what was left.
But though I know how to steal I don't do it. You yourself asked me my
trade. If you kill me you will break your royal word.'

'Very well,' said the king, 'I will not kill you. I pardon you. But from
this hour you shall be shut up in a dark dungeon. Here, guards! away
with him to the prison. But you six Simons follow me and be assured of
my royal favour.'

So the six Simons followed the king. The seventh Simon was seized by the
guards, who put him in chains and threw him in prison with only bread
and water for food. Next day the king gave the first Simon carpenters,
masons, smiths and labourers, with great stores of iron, mortar, and the
like, and Simon began to build. And he built his great white pillar
far, far up into the clouds, as high as the nearest stars; but the other
stars were higher still.

Then the secon