Then came two barefaced and masterful men who told him bluntly that the first duty of his high station was to abandon it.
"What shall I do then?" he asked.
"Work for your living," they shouted.
"What do you do for your living?" he inquired.
"We tell other men what to do," replied they.
"And do you think," said he, "that your job is any harder than mine, or that you work more than I do?" So he gave order that they should have a good supper and be escorted from the castle, for he had no time to waste upon mummers.
But the confusion in his mind continued, because the spirits of his father and his mother were working within him, and the impulse to sudden action gathered force beneath his dreams. So he was glad when the next visitor came bearing the marks of evident sincerity and a great purpose.
His beard was untrimmed, his garb was rude, his feet were bare, like an ancient prophet. His voice was fiercely quiet, and his eyes burned while he talked, as if he saw to the root of all things. He called himself John the Nothingarian.
The lord of the castle related some of the plans which his counsellors had made for his greater usefulness.
"They are puerile," said the Nothingarian, "futile, because they do not go to the root."