he
drawers his father had used, turned over every document, sounded every
wall, bored holes in the wainscot, ripped up the bark, and covered
himself with dust in his furious endeavours to find it. But though he
did this twenty times, though he examined every hollow tree within ten
miles, and peered into everything, forcing even the owl's ancestor to
expose certain skeletons that were in his cupboard, yet could he never
find it.

"And all the while the greatest difficulty he encountered was to hold
his tongue; he did not dare let out that he was looking for the
treasure, because, of course, everybody thought that he was Kapchack,
the same who had put it away. He had to nip his tongue with his beak
till it bled to compel himself by sheer pain to abstain from reviling
his predecessor. But it was no good, the treasure could not be found. He
gave out that all this searching was to discover an ancient deed or
treaty by which he was entitled to a distant province. As the deed could
not be found (having never existed), he marched his army and took the
province by force. And, will you believe it, my friends, the fact is
that from that time to this (till the hurricane broke the bough the
other day) none of the King Kapchacks have had the least idea where
their treasure was. They have lived upon credit.

"Everybody knew there was a treasure, and as time went on and new
generations arose, it became magnified as the tale was handed down, till
only lately, as you know, the whole world considered that Kapchack
possessed wealth the like of which had never been seen. Thus it happened
that as each succeeding Kapchack got farther and farther away from the
reality and lost all trace of the secret, the fame of these riches
increased. But to return. In course of years this Kapchack also found
himself growing old, and it became his turn to prepare a son and heir
for the throne by pecking out his left eye, and denuding him of his tail
feathers. I need not go into further details; suffice it to say the
thing was managed, and although the old fellows well knew their danger
and took all sorts of precautions, the princes thus mutilated always
contrived to assassinate their parents, and thus that apple-tree has
been the theatre of the most awful series of tragedies the earth has
ever known.

"Down to the last King Kapchack, the thing was always managed
successfully, and he was the sixth who had kept up the deception. But
the number six seems in