ornings, they took
slow, tottering rambles in the woods; nodding over grotesque walking-
sticks, of the Chimpanzee's handiwork. For sedate Rozoko was a
dilletante-arborist: an amateur in canes. Indeed, canes at last became
his hobby. For half daft with age, sometimes he straddled his good
staff and gently rode abroad, to take the salubrious evening air;
deeming it more befitting exercise, at times, than walking. Into this
menage, he soon initiated his friend, the king; and side by side they
often pranced; or, wearying of the saddle, dismounted; and paused to
ponder over prostrate palms, decaying across the path. Their mystic
rings they counted; and, for every ring, a year in their own
calendars.

Now, so closely did the monarch cleave to the Chimpanzee, that, in
good time, summoning his subjects, earnestly he charged it on them,
that at death, he and his faithful friend should be buried in one
tomb.

It came to pass, the monarch died; and Poor Rozoko, now reduced to
second childhood, wailed most dismally:--no one slept that night in
Hooloomooloo. Never did he leave the body; and at last, slowly going
round it thrice, he laid him down; close nestled; and
noiselessly expired.

The king's injunctions were remembered; and one vault received them
both.

Moon followed moon; and wrought upon by jeers and taunts, the people
of the isle became greatly scandalized, that a base-born baboon should
share the shroud of their departed lord; though they themselves had
tucked in the aged AEneas fast by the side of his Achates.

They straight resolved, to build another vault; and over it, a lofty
cairn; and thither carry the remains they reverenced.

But at the disinterring, a sad perplexity arose. For lo surpassing
Saul and Jonathan, not even in decay were these fast friends divided.
So mingled every relic,--ilium and ulna, carpus and metacarpus;--and
so similar the corresponding parts, that like the literary remains of
Beaumont and of Fletcher, which was which, no spectacles could tell.
Therefore, they desisted; lest the towering monument they had reared,
might commemorate an ape, and not a king.

Such the narration; hearing which, my lord Media kept stately silence.
But in courtly phrase, as beseemed him, Babbalanja, turban in hand,
thus spoke:--

"My concern is extreme, King Yoky, at the embarrassment into which
your island is thrown. Nor less my grief, that I myself am not the
man, to put an end to it. I could weep that