The King of Gee-Whiz stepped out into an open space in the forest, and,
to his very great surprise, observed that he could not feel his feet
touch the ground. This was really because he was so full of rubber,
although he himself had no idea of any such thing at all. He was
conscious only of feeling that he had all along been a greater King than
he had had credit for being. So he hummed a tune to himself as he began
to dance.
There was probably never a dance just such as this which the King of
Gee-Whiz now began. Had he himself seen it from a distance, he would
have been sure that it was not the performance of a dignified and
respectable King. He sprang from one foot to the other, and each time he
touched the ground he rebounded into the air a dozen feet, or possibly
even more. He alighted upon both feet, muttering as he did so an
exclamation of delight, for, strange as that may seem, he was enjoying
himself very much. Each time that both his feet struck the ground he
went into the air just twice as far as when only one foot was so
employed. He slapped his arms upon his chest, and as he did this, to his
great surprise, a squeak came out of his mouth exactly similar to that
which comes from the hole in a rubber ball when you squeeze it. This
startled him at first, but he was too busy to think about it long.
He sprang from side to side; and whereas in a common dancing step a King
goes scarcely more than two or three feet at a stride, the King now
would step at least a dozen feet, or, for that matter, perhaps twenty.
There seemed to be no limit to the length of the steps he could take;
and whenever he took a step he bounded high into the air, at times
having difficulty in keeping himself from turning quite over in the air.
Indeed, the temptation to turn hand-springs and somersaults as he had
done when a boy became so strong upon him that only his great kingly
dignity served to prevent his doing that very thing.
"Aha!" cried the King, "this certainly is fine." At least these are the
words which he wished to say, although all that he could hear were
several sharp whistles as the breath came out of his mouth.
The King sprang up and down very hard, anxious to see how high he could
go into the air. To his great surprise, he found that by making several
leaps up and down he could easily bound upward as high as the top of the
tallest palms. This pleased him very much, as in this position he
secured a wider view of his own possessions than he had ever had in his
life before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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