I translate the word “Armpit” literally which is used by the natives in addressing their ruler, wishing, as I suppose, to signify either that his arms are more beautifully rounded and developed than those of his subjects, or that the shoulders are more lofty and are on a higher plane than the rest of the body. His Grace motioned to the eunuch to cease the spraying of perfume and the dropping of clover juice that he might acknowledge my salutation. “You speak of being here on a relief expedition,” quoth he; “whom, pray, are you to relieve?” “Myself,” said I, for I had found on previous visits that the surest means of flattering His Royal Axilla was by depreciating my own countrymen. But this time it seems I was mistaken. “I take it that you are a failure in your native land,” quoth the ruler, “for those who are failures are usually ‘bored’, to use your tongue. Is it not so, thou parasite of the warm ocean land?” “True it is, O Excelsior,” I replied, “but my failure is due not to me; it is the fault of----” Here he cut me short with an interruption: “Those who are failures,” quoth he, “ever place the cause of their failure upon others, while those who attain success always accredit it to themselves.” I thanked His Majesty for these kind words of wisdom, and was about to take my departure when he asked me if I had seen the new instrument of punishment which he had just had erected. Upon my replying in the negative, he said that I could obtain a good view of it from one of the windows in the royal bed-chamber, and that as he himself was going thither to take his two o’clock siesta, he would gladly show it to me in person. I thanked him with many encomiums upon his hospitality, and we proceeded to his sleeping apartments. Upon our arrival at the entrance to his bed-chamber, I noticed that the windows were screened by a series of reflectors, making a curious olio of lights, and there were strips of tapestry in many gradations of color and tone effects. To my query as to the purpose of these massive reflectors of light, the Excelsior replied that he deemed it to be very bad for the nervous system to awake suddenly, saying that this theory is supported by the fact that in a true state of nature one is awakened gradually from sleep by the slow transition from darkness to light. Accordingly, he produced by the arrangement of these reflectors an effect similar to that of dawn, and he could thus be awakened gradually at any hour of the day or night. “The old-fashioned method of letting up blinds or throwing open shutters,” quoth he, “and thereby admitting a sudden influx of bright light is most injurious to the optic nerves and leaves the mind in a drowsy and dazed condition. My optician, whom I have had with me for two decades, agrees with me in this theory. And my invention overcomes these deleterious effects of a sudden awakening.”