“Because you are mad! With the itching palm! Look at you! You can’t stand still on your feet! Rub, rub! Want in the midst of plenty! Scratch, scratch! Some with too little and some with too much! Rub, rub! And enough for everybody in reason! Scratch, scratch! All mad, all mad! Rub, rub! Look at me--have I itching palms?” He held up his hands, palms outward. “No!” exclaimed several in the crowd. “Tell me why! Tell me why! Because I touch not the dead leaves! Isn’t it so?” No one answered. “Give ear, madmen, and I will reveal to you how to cure the itching palm! Bring the dead orange leaves here to the square! Pile them up! Burn them, burn them, burn them, every one! That’s it! Will you give up the dead leaves?” “No!” roared the people as if with one voice. “Then farewell, madmen!” cried the Fool, and he jerked the monkey from his shoulder and descended from the platform. The people, still rubbing their hands together and dancing, but laughing withal, rapidly left the square, and my sister and myself started to go; and as we started, the dwarf appeared before us with his monkey, and cocked his eye up at us waggishly. “What, ho!” said the Fool. “Strangers, by the ears of a donkey! Greeting, strangers, what do you among my mad subjects?” “To tell you the truth, my lord,” said I, making up my mind on the spur of the moment, “I have come here with my sister from a distant land, to cure the people and their King of the itching palm.” “How so?” said the hunchback, sharply. “With a little remedy of my own,” said I, tapping my pouch. “Bah!” said the Fool, jerking the monkey’s cord. “Go home, madman, you are wasting your time.” “One moment!” I said. “Conduct me to the King, I beg you. You shall see me prove my boast.” He looked up at me sidewise. “Pouf!” said he, snapping his fingers. “Old Fatchaps is as big a fool as you are. Here; I’ll give you a chance; there’s nobody here to help me. I ask you, will you help me? I have a plan to gather the leaves together and burn them. With your help I can do it, and we will save the people together. Will you help?” “Not I,” said I, laughing again. “The people would tear us both to pieces.” “What does that matter?” said the Fool. “It matters to me,” said I. “Is that your choice?” said the Fool. “You have made your choice? Done, then. Come with me. I will take you to the King; and you will wish that I hadn’t. Oh, these fools! The time is coming when I must take the case in hand myself, all alone; for I will tell you a secret; lend me your ear.” He pulled my head down, and whispered fiercely in my ear. “I love this people, and I will save them; whether they will or no. D’ye hear? They are my people, and they must be saved! Whether they will or no! And then what a bonfire! What a bonfire!” He jerked the monkey’s cord again, and made off swiftly. We followed him, and my sister said to me, in a low voice, “Do you think he is mad?” “That,” said I, “is precisely what I do not know.”