The King and Queen were much concerned at this change in Hamlet, and could not imagine what caused it, unless it were his father’s death. They sent in haste for two favourite friends of his boyhood to see if they could cheer him up with their company, and privately glean if there were anything afflicting him unknown to them. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern promised to do their best, and the Queen ordered them to be at once conducted to Hamlet. In the meanwhile, old Polonius had solved the problem of Hamlet’s madness entirely to his own satisfaction, and he now came in triumph to impart his discovery to the King and Queen. It was, of course, quite impossible for him to tell his tale in a few words, but after an immense deal of beating round the bush, at last he came to the point. Briefly, it amounted to this: Hamlet had become mad because Ophelia had rejected his love. Oh, Polonius was quite certain about it, there was no doubt of the fact; and he carefully traced in detail all the various stages of Hamlet’s malady, which, it need scarcely be said, only existed in the old Chamberlain’s imagination. Polonius further produced as evidence a wild sort of letter that Hamlet had written to Ophelia, and was quite offended when the King and Queen seemed to hesitate a little in accepting his explanation of the problem. “Hath there been such a time, I would fain know that, that I have positively said ‘’Tis so’ when it proved otherwise?” “Not that I know,” said the King. “Take this from this,” said Polonius, pointing to his head and shoulders, “if this be otherwise. If circumstances lead me, I will find where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed within the centre.” “How may we try it further?” asked the King. Polonius replied that Hamlet often walked for hours together in the lobby where they then were, and suggested that at such a time Ophelia should be sent to speak to him; he and the King, secretly hidden behind the arras, would watch the interview. “If he love her not, and be not fallen from his reason because of it, let me be no assistant for a State, but keep a farm and carters,” concluded Polonius complacently. “We will try it,” said the King. “But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading,” said the Queen, as Hamlet himself entered the lobby at that moment, his eyes fixed on the open book he held in his hand. “Away, I do beseech you--both away!” cried Polonius eagerly. “I will speak to him.--How does my good Lord Hamlet?” he added suavely, as Hamlet approached. “Well, God have mercy!” said Hamlet, in a voice of vacant indifference. “Do you know me, my lord?” said Polonius, still in the same coaxing tone. The young Prince lifted his listless eyes from his book and surveyed the old man. “Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.” “Not I, my lord,” said Polonius, rather taken aback. “Then I would you were so honest a man.” “Honest, my lord?” “Ay, sir! To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”