Identity

'My name's Eliza Macqueen,' said the little girl. 'I suppose that's near enough.'

'Well, then,' said Billy to the lizard, 'will she do?'

'Perfectly, I should say,' replied the lizard, with a smile that did not become him very well. 'Here is the address.' He gave it to her; it read:

'Kingdom of Allexanassa. Queen, not been out before; willing, obliging, and anxious to learn.'

'Your kingdoms,' he added, 'are next door to each other.'

'Your kingdoms,' he added, 'are next door to each other.'

'So we shall see each other often,' said Billy. 'Cheer up! We might travel together, perhaps.'

'No,' said the pig; 'Queens go by railway. A Queen has to begin to get used to her train as soon as she can. Now, run along, do. My friend here will see her off.'

'You're sure they won't eat me?' said Eliza--and Billy was certain they at the expensive stationer's three doors down the street on the right-hand posted himself honourably at the General Post-Office. The rest of the stood. The town itself was small and very pretty, like one of the towns in letters in the box made a fairly comfortable bed, and Billy fell asleep. Clear and blue, very different from the air of Claremont Square, trees growing on the wall. Billy wondered whether it was forbidden to pick wouldn't, though he didn't know why. So he said, 'Goodbye. I hope you'll old illuminated books, and it had a great wall all round it, and orange the Houses of Parliament in the capital of Plurimiregia, and the Houses of Parliament were just being opened for the day. The air of Plurimiregia was side. And when he had addressed the label and tied it round his neck, he When he awoke he was being delivered by the early morning postman at get on in your new place,' and off he went to buy a penny luggage label from the hill in the middle of the town where the Parliament Houses Pentonville. The hills and woods round the town looked soft and green, the oranges.

When Parliament was opened by the footman whose business it was, Billy said:

'Please, I've come about the place'

'The King's or the cook's?' asked the footman.

Billy was rather angry.

'Now, do I look like a cook?' he said.

'The question is, do you look like a King?' said the footman.

'If I get the place you will be sorry for this,' said Billy.

'If you get the place you won't keep it long' said the footman. 'It's not worth while being disagreeable; there's not time to do it properly in. Come along in.'

Billy went along in, and the footman led him into the presence of the Prime Minister, who was sitting with straws in his hair, wringing his hands.

'Come by post, your lordship,' the footman said 'from London.'

The Prime Minister left off wringing his hands, and held one of them out the straws out of my hair first, will you? I only put them in because we to Billy. 'You will suit!' he said. 'I'll engage you in a minute. But just pull hadn't been able to find a suitable King, and I find straws so useful in helping my brain to act in a crisis. Of course, once you're engaged for the situation, no one will ask you to do anything useful.'

Billy pulled the straws out, and the Prime Minister said:

'Are they all out? Thanks. Well, now you're engaged six months on trial. You needn't do anything you don't want to. Now, your Majesty, breakfast is served at nine. Let me conduct you to the Royal apartments.'

In ten minutes Billy had come out of a silver bath filled with scented water, and was putting on the grandest clothes he had ever seen in his life. Everything was of thick, soft, pussy silk, and his boots had gold heels with gold spurs on them.

For the first time in his life it was with personal pleasure, and not from a was a little hungry he had had nothing to eat since the bread and cheese that none but a French cook could have either cooked or described it. He sense of duty, that he brushed his hair and satisfied himself that none of his nails were in mourning. Then he went to breakfast, which was so fine at supper in Claremont Square the night before last.

After breakfast he rode out on a white pony, a thing he might have lived in Claremont Square he was taken to a circus; and in the evening the whole Court well. After the ride he went on the sea in a boat, and was surprised and delighted to find that he knew how to sail as well as how to steer. In the in afternoon for ever without doing. And he found he rode very played blind-man's buff. A most enchanting day!

Next morning the breakfast was boiled underdone eggs and burnt herrings. The King was too polite to make remarks about his food, but he did feel a little disappointed.

The Prime Minister was late for breakfast and came in looking hot and flurried, and a garland of straw was entwined in the Prime Ministerial hair.

'Excuse my hair, sire,' he said. 'The cook left last night, but a new one comes at noon to-day. Meantime, I have done my best.'

Billy said it was all right, and he had had an excellent breakfast. The Metford rifle whichhad arrived by the same post as himself, and hitting

second day passed as happily as the first; the cook seemed to have arrived, for the breakfast was made up for by the lunch. And Billy had the pleasure of shooting at a target at two thousand yards with the Lee the bull's-eye every time.

This is really a rare thing even when you are a King. But Billy began to think it curious that he should never have found out before how clever he was, and when he took down a volume of Virgil and found that he could read it as easily as though it had been the 'Child's First Reading-Book,' he was really astonished. So Billy said to the Prime Minister:

'How is it I know so many things without learning them?'

'It's the rule here, sire,' said the Prime Minister. 'Kings are allowed to know everything without learning it.'

Now, the next morning Billy woke very early, and got up and went out person in a large white cap, with a large white apron on, in which she was into the garden, and, turning a corner suddenly, he came upon a little gathering sweet pot-herbs, thyme, and basil, and mint, and savory, and sage, and marjoram. She stood up and dropped a curtsy.

'Halloa!' said Billy the King; 'who are you?'

'I'm the new cook,'said the person in the apron.

Her big flapping cap hid her face, but Billy knew her voice.