ly, and with a wave of his hand
called my attention to the previous day's bag. It covered a ten-acre
lot.

"There isn't sawdust enough in creation to stuff half of these
beasts," he remarked proudly. "I hardly know what I shall do about
that."

"Better bury them in the mud," I suggested, "and let them petrify."

He seemed pleased with the idea, and later put it into operation.

"Fossils are not so susceptible to moths," he observed as he gave
orders for their immersion in a Triassic mud-puddle of huge
proportions. "That was a good idea of yours, Methuselah."

"I have a better one than that," I returned, seeing at last an opening
for my strategic movement. "Why should a man of Your Majesty's prowess
waste his time on such insignificant creatures as these, when the
whole country is ringing with complaints of an animal a thousand times
as large, and that no one hereabouts has ever dared attempt to
pursue?"

He was on the alert instantly.

"What animal do you refer to?" he demanded, his interest becoming so
deep that he put four pairs of eyeglasses upon his royal nose, so that
he could see me better.

"It belongs to the family of Rodents," I replied. "It is without any
exception the biggest rat in the history of our mammals. It is a
combination of the Castoridae, the Chinchillidae, the Dodgastidae, and
the Lagomydian Leporidae, with just a dash of the Dippydoodle on the
maternal side."

His Majesty gave a sigh of disappointment, and resumed his writing.

"I haven't come here to shoot rats," he observed coldly, removing the
three extra pairs of spectacles from his nose. "I am a huntsman, not a
trapper."

"Your Majesty does not understand that this is no ordinary rat," I
returned calmly. "If I may be permitted to continue, what would Your
Highness think of a rat that was several thousand feet higher than
the pyramids, that has lived continuously for thousands of years, and
is as fresh and green in spirit as on the day it was born? Suppose I
were to tell you that so great is its strength that I have myself seen
a whole herd of aboriginal elephants lying asleep upon its broad back?
What would you say if I told you that its epidermis is so thick that
if there were such a thing as a steam-drill in creation six hundred of
them could bore away at it night and day for as many years without
making any visible impression thereon?"

He again put down his chisel, and laid the hammer aside, as he ranged
the extra eyeglas