They took a little country-box— A box at Covent Garden also: They lived a life of double-knocks, Acquaintances began to call so: Their London house was much the same (It took three hundred, clear, to rent it): “Life is a very jolly game!” Cried happy Tottles (and he meant it). ‘Contented with a frugal lot’ (He always used that phrase at Gunter’s), He bought a handy little yacht— A dozen serviceable hunters— The fishing of a Highland Loch— A sailing-boat to circumvent it— “The sounding of that Gaelic ‘och’ Beats _me_!” said Tottles (and he meant it). Here, with one of those convulsive starts that wake one up in the very act of dropping off to sleep, I became conscious that the deep musical tones that thrilled me did _not_ belong to Mein Herr, but to the French Count. The old man was still conning the manuscript. “I _beg_ your pardon for keeping you waiting!” he said. “I was just making sure that I knew the English for all the words. I am quite ready now.” And he read me the following Legend:— “In a city that stands in the very centre of Africa, and is rarely visited by the casual tourist, the people had always bought eggs—a daily necessary in a climate where egg-flip was the usual diet—from a Merchant who came to their gates once a week. And the people always bid wildly against each other: so there was quite a lively auction every time the Merchant came, and the last egg in his basket used to fetch the value of two or three camels, or thereabouts. And eggs got dearer every week. And still they drank their egg-flip, and wondered where all their money went to. [Illustration: THE EGG-MERCHANT] “And there came a day when they put their heads together. And they understood what donkeys they had been. “And next day, when the Merchant came, only _one_ Man went forth. And he said ‘Oh, thou of the hook-nose and the goggle-eyes, thou of the measureless beard, how much for that lot of eggs?’ “And the Merchant answered him ‘I _could_ let thee have that lot at ten thousand piastres the dozen.’ “And the Man chuckled inwardly, and said ‘_Ten_ piastres the dozen I offer thee, and no more, oh descendant of a distinguished grandfather!’ “And the Merchant stroked his beard, and said ‘Hum! I will await the coming of thy friends,’ So he waited. And the Man waited with him. And they waited both together.” “The manuscript breaks off here,” said Mein Herr, as he rolled it up again; “but it was enough to open our eyes. We saw what simpletons we had been—buying our Scholars much as those ignorant savages bought their eggs—and the ruinous system was abandoned. If only we could have abandoned, along with it, all the _other_ fashions we had borrowed from you, instead of carrying them to their logical results! But it was not to be. What ruined my country, and drove me from my home, was the introduction—into the _Army_, of all places—of your theory of Political Dichotomy!”