"It is all I have written up to this moment," the voice answered. "Of course there are seventy or eighty more miles of it, because, as your Majesty is well aware, it would take many a league of poetry fitly to commemorate your virtues."
"Your answer is pleasing unto me," replied the monarch of Frostland, when the voice had thus spoken. "The office of the Secretary of State is yours. The salary is not large, but the duties are. They are to consist mainly of——"
Here the King was interrupted by a tremendous noise without. Evidently some one was creating a disturbance, and as Jimmieboy turned to see what it was, he saw the great ice mountain looming up over the far-distant horizon melt slowly away and dwindle out of sight; and then messengers, breathless with haste, rushed in and cried out to the King:
THE GAS-STOVE DESTROYING FROSTLAND.
"We are attacked! we are attacked! A tribe from a far country, commanded by the Gas Stove, is even now within our boundaries, armed with a devastating hose, breathing forth fire, by which already has been destroyed the whole western frontier."
"What is to be done?" cried Jack, in alarm, and springing to his feet. "Can we not send a regiment of cold winds out against them, and freeze them to their very marrows and blow out the gas?"
"We cannot, sire," returned the messenger, "for the heat is so deadly that the winds themselves thaw into balmy zephyrs before they reach the enemy."
"Not so!" cried the voice from Jimmieboy's lips. "For I will save you if you will place the matter in my hands."