from his hold and went crashing down over a precipice; but still the King climbed on and on, breathless but undaunted. At length, at the very top of the mountain, as it seemed, the bird made a longer pause than usual. It lighted on a point of rock, and folding its wings, seemed really to wait for the King, singing, meanwhile, a song of the most inviting and encouraging description. Nearer and nearer crept the King, and still the bird did not move. He was within arm’s length, and was just stretching out his arm to seize the prize, when it fluttered off the rock. Frantic with excitement, the King made a desperate clutch after it, and— PART II. AT eight o’clock the landlady knocked at the King’s door. “Hot water, Your Majesty,” she said. “Shall I bring the can in? And the Band desires his respects, and would you wish him to play while you are a-dressing, being as you didn’t bring a music-box with you?” Receiving no answer, after knocking several times, the good woman opened the door very cautiously, and peeped in, fully expecting to see the royal night-cap reposing calmly on the pillow. What was her amazement at finding the room empty; no sign of the King was to be seen, although his pink-silk knee-breeches lay on a chair, and his ermine mantle and his crown were hanging on a peg against the wall. The landlady gave the alarm at once. The King had disappeared! He had been robbed, murdered; the assassins had chopped him up into little pieces and carried him away in a bundle-handkerchief! “Murder! police! fire!!!!” In the midst of the wild confusion the voice of the Boots was heard. “Please, ’m, I see His Majesty go out at about five o’clock this morning.” Again the chorus rose: he had run away; he had gone to surprise and slay the King of Coringo while he was taking his morning chocolate; he had gone to take a bath in the river, and was drowned! “Murder! police!” The voice of the Boots was heard again. “And please, ’m, he’s a sittin’ out in the courtyard now; and please, ’m, I think he’s crazy!” Out rushed everybody, pell-mell, into the courtyard. There, on the ground, sat the King, with his tattered dressing-gown wrapped majestically about him. An ecstatic smile illuminated his face, while he clasped in his arms a large bird with shining plumage. “Bless me!” cried the poultry-woman. “If he hasn’t got my Shanghai rooster that I couldn’t catch last night!” The King, hearing voices, looked round, and smiled graciously on the astonished crowd. “Good people,” he said, “success has crowned my efforts. I have found the Golden-breasted Kootoo! You shall all have ten pounds apiece, in honor of this joyful event, and the landlady shall be made a baroness in her own right!” “But,” said the poultry-woman, “it is my Shang—”