“Oh, something small, please. I should be terribly frightened if you were to turn into a lion or bear, you see.” “All right,” said Ohah, “I’ll be a Kottle.” “What’s that?” cried Boy. “Oh, a thing all _gribbins_ and _bones_,” explained Ohah. “Now watch,” and he waved his wand about his head two or three times, and then disappeared. Boy watched intently, for he wanted very much to find out what a Kottle was; nothing appeared, though, except one or two oddly-shaped scraps of paper, which Boy picked up and tried to fit together, for there was something written on the back of them; at last he was able to make out the following words:--“_I have forgotten how to change myself back from a Kottle again. Goodbye for ever, Ohah._” [Illustration: 0149] “There!” exclaimed Boy. “Well, I must say I’m not very sorry, for he must have been a most dangerous person to have about. I _should_ have liked to have found out what a Kottle was, though.” But he never did, and I may mention here that at Zum to this day they have a habit of saying about anything that they don’t understand, “Oh, it must be a Kottle.” When Boy found that there was no chance of Ohah reappearing, he wondered if he ought to send for the young King and the Royal Nurse to come back again, but finally decided that in the present unsettled state of public opinion it would be safer to wait a little while and see what happened; because if the Lord High Adjudicator and the other Statesmen were treacherous enough to hand the little King over to the tender mercies of Ohah, Boy felt that he was not at all safe in their hands. Shortly after this it was discovered that the King and the Royal Nurse were missing, and the Lord High Adjudicator and the others flocked to the Palace to find out if it were true. Caesar Maximilian Augustus Claudius Smith (called Thomas for short) explained what had happened to himself; and it was at once decided that Ohah must have made the little King invisible rather sooner than he had intended, and they all went back to the House of Words to talk over the situation. “Of course we must have a general election at once,” said the Lord High Adjudicator when they had all settled down into their places, “to decide who is to be made King.” “I am still willing to accept the post, if you like,” suggested the Kitchen Poker in Waiting disinterestedly. “It will save the trouble of an election, you know; and I don’t wish to boast, but I am quite sure that you could not possibly select anybody nearly so suitable for the position as myself. Handsome, accomplished and modest to a degree, I----” “Here, here, that’s quite enough of that,” interrupted the Advertiser General. “We have decided to elect a King by vote, and there’s an end of the matter. I will go and have some posters printed and stuck about all over the town, and we’ll soon have this matter put right. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if I were elected myself. I’m a very popular man, you know.”