While the sparrow thus spoke, Caliph raised his head slowly out of the water. Seven times did he open and close his enormous mouth. At length, in a voice that rang throughout the Menial World, he spoke as follows:
"Harken unto me, all ye Menial People. As to the first monkey, it was in this wise: When the first man had been made, his shadow fell upon some very poor clay that had been thrown away. And it came to pass that when the first man walked, and his shadow walked after him, the poor clay upon which the shadow rested rose and ran shrieking into the forest. And, lo! it was a monkey. Behold, I have spoken."
When Caliph had sunk beneath the water again, Pwit-Pwit, with his head on one side, listened eagerly for the comments of the other Menial People, and Toots, with his hand placed warningly on the Princess, listened, too. First, Mahmoud trumpeted his acquiescence:
"It is true. I heard it from my father in the Jungle one day when these insolent chatterers were particularly annoying. The monkeys are but as chips that fall from the hewn log."
"Behold, Caliph's words are the words of wisdom," said Sultan, patriarch of the lions, in his deepest roar. "I, who was born in the shadow of the great pyramids, had it from my father, who had it from the father of Caliph when he went down to the Nile to drink. Lo! the monkeys are as the chaff when the wheat is winnowed."
"I am not of that country," said the old dromedary from the plains of Arabia; "but my cousins, the camels, known to all the world as ships of the desert, brought the news to my people. By the fat in my hump, I swear that Caliph speaks the truth."
"My grandmother had it from an aged crocodile who crawled up on the bank of the Nile to sun herself, just as she was laying in the hot sand the egg that hatched my mother," screamed the old cock ostrich. "The monkeys are of no more consequence than straws blown by the wind."
And no voice among the Menial People was silent. Those who had no testimony to add to that of Caliph, roared and screeched and howled their approval of it. But the monkeys did not remain long abashed at the verdict against them. When Pwit-Pwit, followed by Toots and the Princess, returned to observe its effect upon them, they found Mr. Kelly sitting cross-legged on his overturned water bucket, with his chin in his hand, meditating deeply.
"Well," chirped Pwit-Pwit, "did you hear the verdict of old Caliph?"