I strove in vain to stammer out my thanks.
He would not hear a word of them; said that “the stream should flow the other way,” meaning that I was the one to be thanked.
“Now, little man all head,” began the King, after I had finished my wine, “I have sent for thee to try and make thee happy, in the same measure as thou hast contributed to my happiness. This day I speak to thee from a father’s heart. Thou hast restored my darling child to health and contentment, and remembering from my conversations with thee that thou art a great lover of rare and useful books, I have had copies made of every book on the shelves of the royal library, and I now beg thee to accept them as a very slight token of my gratitude.”
I was speechless.
The blood rushed fast and hot to my cheeks.
I stammered out a few senseless words of protest, thanks, surprise, and what not.
The plan seemed to me only too plainly a scheme to tie me in King Gâ-roo’s service, to load me with several thousand volumes which I would have no possible means of carrying with me, and which, to leave behind would be such an insult that arrest and imprisonment would most surely follow.
At last I succeeded in getting myself together in some shape, and spake as follows:
“O, most powerful, wonderful and graceful jumper of all the Umi-Lobas, Gâ-roo, thousandth of thy line, I implore thee do not load me down with such a vast and priceless treasure. Thou knowest I am but a sojourner for a brief term in thy kingdom; I have no caravan, when I go hence to transport this vast accumulation of wisdom, stored in so many thousands of thick and bulky volumes, steel-clasped and iron-hinged. Thy gift is far too princely for so humble a visitor as I. Therefore, most gracious King Gâ-roo, bestow it upon some wealthy noble of thy land, in whose spacious castle halls these books may find a safe resting-place, shelf rising on shelf, a very fortress of learning, impregnable to the cohorts of ignorance.”
King Gâ-roo smiled.