"Well?"
"Ah, but they laughed at me. They asked me confusing questions; niggling little questions about the things swine ate and—and things like that. The great principles of swineherding, the—what I may call the art of herding swine, the whole theory of shepherding pigs in a broad-minded way, all this they ignored. They laughed at me and turned me out with jeers and blows—to starve."
Merriwig patted him sympathetically, and pressed some more food on him.
"I ranged over the whole of Barodia. Nobody would take me in. It is a terrible thing, my dear Merriwig, to begin to lose faith in yourself. I had to tell myself at last that perhaps there was something about Barodian swine which made them different from those of any other country. As a last hope I came to Euralia; if here too I was spurned, then I should know that——"
"Just a moment," said Merriwig, breaking in eagerly. "Who was this swineherd that you talked to——"
"I talked to so many," said the other sadly. "They all scoffed at me."
"No, but the first one; the one that showed you that you had a bent towards it. Didn't you say that——"
"Oh, that one. That was at the beginning of our war. Do you remember telling me that your swineherd had an invisible cloak? It was he that——"
Merriwig looked at him sadly and shook his head.
"My poor friend," he said, "it was me."