"I should think you would have liked that," said Jimmieboy's voice.
"I would have," said the king, "because you know the law of this country requires the king to consume a bottle of cod-liver oil every day, and if the bottles were all broken, perhaps the law, too, would have been crushed out of existence. But, after all, I'd rather be king with cod-liver oil than have my kingdom ruined and do without it. How would you like to see our gardens?"
"Very much," said Jimmieboy. "I'm fond of flowers."
The king laughed.
"What a droll idea," he said, turning to the laureate. "The idea of flowers growing in gardens! Write me a rhyme on the drollness of the idea."
The laureate sighed. It was evident that he was getting tired of composing verses to order.
"I hear and obey," he replied, shortly, and then he recited as follows:
"To think of wasting: any time
In raising flowers, I think,
Is worse than writing nonsense-rhyme,
Or frying purple ink.
"It's queerer really than the act
Of painting sword-fish green;
Or sailing down a cataract
To please a magazine.
"Indeed, it really seems to me,
Who now am very old,
The drollest bit of drollery
That ever has been drolled."
"But what do you raise in your gardens?" asked Jimmieboy, as the laureate completed his composition.