“Do you know anybody here who can identify you?”
“That were not likely, fair lord, I being come hither now for the first time.”
“Have you brought any letters — mdash; any documents — mdash; any proofs that you are trustworthy and truthful?”
“Of a surety, no; and wherefore should I? Have I not a tongue, and cannot I say all that myself?”
“But YOUR saying it, you know, and somebody else’s saying it, is different.”
“Different? How might that be? I fear me I do not understand.”
“Don’t understand? Land of — mdash; why, you see — mdash; you see — mdash; why, great Scott, can’t you understand a little thing like that? Can’t you understand the difference ———————————————————————— Page 80
between your — mdash; whydo you look so innocent and idiotic!”
“I? In truth I know not, but an it were the will of God.”
“Yes, yes, I reckon that’s about the size of it. Don’t mind my seeming excited; I’m not. Let us change the subject. Now as to this castle, with forty-five princesses in it, and three ogres at the head of it, tell me — mdash; where is this harem?”
“Harem?”
“The castle, you understand; where is the castle?”
“Oh, as to that, it is great, and strong, and well beseen, and lieth in a far country. Yes, it is many leagues.”
“how many?”
“Ah, fair sir, it were woundily hard to tell, they are so many, and do so lap the one upon the other, and being made all in the same image and tincted with the same color, one may not know the one league from its fellow, nor how to count them except they be taken apart, and ye wit well it were God’s work to do that, being not within man’s capacity; for ye will note — mdash; ”
“Hold on, hold on, never mind about the distance; whereabouts does the castle lie? What’s the direction from here?”
“Ah, please you sir, it hath no direction from here; by reason that the road lieth not straight, but turneth evermore; wherefore the direction of its place abideth not, but is some time under the one sky and anon under another, whereso if ye be minded that it is in the east, and wend thitherward, ye shall observe that the way of the road doth yet again turn upon itself by the [Image]
`Great Scott! Can’t you understand a little thing like that?’
———————————————————————— Page 81
space of half a circle, and this marvel happing again and yet again and still again, it will grieve you that you had thought by vanities of the mind to thwart and bring to naught the will of Him that giveth not a castle a direction from a place except it pleaseth Him, and if it please Him not, will the rather that even all castles and all directions thereunto vanish out of the earth, leaving the places wherein they tarried desolate and vacant, so warning His creatures that where He will He will, and where He will not He — mdash; ”
“Oh, that’s all right, that’s all right, give us a rest; never mind about the direction, hang the direction — mdash; I beg pardon, I beg a thousand pardons, I am not well to-day; pay no attention when I soliloquize, it is an old habit, an old, bad habit, and hard to get rid of when one’s digestion is all disordered with eating food that was raised forever and ever before he was born; good land! a man can’t keep his functions regular on spring chickens thirteen hundred years old. But come — mdash; never mind about that; let’s — mdash; have you got such a thing as a map of that region about you? Now a good map — mdash; ”
“Is it peradventure that manner of thing which of late the unbelievers have brought from over the great seas, which, being boiled in oil, and an onion and salt added thereto, doth — mdash; ”
“What, a map? What are you talking about? Don’t you know what a map is? There, there, never mind, don’t explain, I hate explanations; they fog a thing up so that you can’t tell anything about it. Run along, dear; good-day; show her the way, Clarence.”