; for two candidates for a lieutenancy do
travel hence with the king--young nobles both--and if you but wait
where you are you will hear them questioned."

"That is news to the purpose. I will get one West Pointer in,
anyway. Mount a man and send him to that school with a message;
let him kill horses, if necessary, but he must be there before
sunset to-night and say--"

"There is no need. I have laid a ground wire to the school.
Prithee let me connect you with it."

It sounded good! In this atmosphere of telephones and lightning
communication with distant regions, I was breathing the breath
of life again after long suffocation. I realized, then, what a
creepy, dull, inanimate horror this land had been to me all these
years, and how I had been in such a stifled condition of mind as
to have grown used to it almost beyond the power to notice it.

I gave my order to the superintendent of the Academy personally.
I also asked him to bring me some paper and a fountain pen and
a box or so of safety matches. I was getting tired of doing
without these conveniences. I could have them now, as I wasn't
going to wear armor any more at present, and therefore could get
at my pockets.

When I got back to the monastery, I found a thing of interest
going on. The abbot and his monks were assembled in the great
hall, observing with childish wonder and faith the performances
of a new magician, a fresh arrival. His dress was the extreme of
the fantastic; as showy and foolish as the sort of thing an Indian
medicine-man wears. He was mowing, and mumbling, and gesticulating,
and drawing mystical figures in the air and on the floor,--the
regular thing, you know. He was a celebrity from Asia--so he
said, and that was enough. That sort of evidence was as good
as gold, and passed current everywhere.

How easy and cheap it was to be a great magician on this fellow's
terms. His specialty was to tell you what any individual on the
face of the globe was doing at the moment; and what he had done
at any time in the past, and what he would do at any time in the
future. He asked if any would like to know what the Emperor of
the East was doing now? The sparkling eyes and the delighted rubbing
of hands made eloquent answer--this reverend crowd _would_ like to
know what that monarch was at, just as this moment. The fraud
went through some more mummery, and then made grave announcement:

"The high and mighty Emperor of the East doth at