"One day in June King Muffin was out on horseback. He had left his crown at home and was wearing his third-best clothes, so you would have thought that he was just an ordinary man. But he was a good horseman; that is, he wasn't thinking every minute about falling off, but sat loosely, as one might sit in a rocking-chair.
"The country was beautiful and green, and in the sky there were puffy clouds that looked the way a pop-over looks before it turns brown—a big pop-over that would stuff even a hungry giant up to his ears. And there was a wind that wiggled everything, and the noise of a brook among the trees. Also, there were birds, but you must not ask me their names, for I am not good at birds.
"King Muffin, although he was a brave man, loved a pleasant day. So he turned back his collar at the throat in order that the wind might tickle his neck and he dropped his reins on his horse's back in a careless way that wouldn't be possible on a street where there were trolley-cars. In this fashion he rode on for several miles and sang to himself a great many songs. Sometimes he knew the words and sometimes he said tum tum te tum tum, but he kept to the tune.
"King Muffin enjoyed his ride so much that before he knew it he was out of his own kingdom and at least six parasangs in the kingdom of King Zooks. My dear, use your handkerchief!
"And even then King Muffin would not have realized it, except that on turning a corner he saw a young man lying under a tree in a suit that was half green and half yellow. King Muffin knew him at once to be a jester—but whose? King Zooks's jester, of course, his mortal enemy. For jesters have to go off by themselves once in a while to think up new jokes, and no other king lived within riding distance. Really, the jester was thinking of rhymes to zithern, which is the name of the curious musical instrument he carried, and is a little like a mandolin, only harder to play. It cannot be learned in twelve easy lessons. And the jester was making a sorry business of it, for it is a difficult word to find rhymes to, as you would know if you tried. He was terribly woeful.
"King Muffin said 'Whoa' and stopped his horse. Then he said 'Good morning, fellow,' in the kind of superior tone that kings use.
"The jester got off the ground and, as he did not know that Muffin was a king, he sneezed; for the ground was damp. It was a slow sneeze in coming, for the ground was not very wet, and he stood waiting for it with his mouth open and his eyes squinting. So King Muffin waited too, and had a moment to think. And as kings think very fast, very many thoughts came to him. So, by the time the sneeze had gone off like a shower bath, and before the pipes filled up for another, some interesting things had occurred to him. Well! things about the Princess and how he might get a chance to speak with her. But he said:
"'Ho, ho! Methinks King Zooks's jester has the snuffles.'
"At this, Jeppo—for that was the jester's name—looked up with a wry face, for he still kept a sneeze inside him which he couldn't dislodge.
"'By my boots and spurs!' the King cried again, 'you are a woeful jester.'