"I have been singing this morning, too."
"Why?" asked Coronel eagerly.
"Because the war with Barodia is over."
"Oh!" said Coronel, rather taken aback.
"That doesn't interest you. Yet if you were a Euralian——"
"But it interests me extremely. Let us admire the scene for a moment, while I think. Look, there is another of my little clouds."
Coronel wondered what would happen now. If the King were coming back, then Udo would be wanted no longer save as a suitor for Hyacinth's hand. If, then, he returned, it would show that—— But suppose he was still an animal? It was doubtful if he would go back to Araby as an animal. And then there was another possibility: perhaps he had never come to Euralia at all. Here were a lot of questions to be answered, and here next to him was one who could answer them. But he must go carefully.
"Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, a hundred," he said aloud. "There, I've finished my thinking and you've finished your looking."
"And what have you decided?" smiled Hyacinth.
"Decided?" said Coronel, rather startled. "Oh, no, I wasn't deciding anything, I was just thinking. I was thinking about animals."