"Absurd!" said the sprite, with a sneering laugh. "The idea of a lead spoon being valuable!"
"If you had ever been able to get into the society of kings," the major answered, with a great deal of dignity, "you would know that on the table of a monarch lead is much more rare than silver and gold. It was this fact that made me so overpoweringly valuable, and it is not surprising that a great many of the kings who used to come to these birthday parties should become envious of Fuzzywuz and wish they owned a treasure like myself. One very old king died of envy because of me, and his heir-apparent inherited his father's desire to possess me to such a degree that he too pined away and finally disappeared entirely. Just regularly faded out of sight. Didn't die, you know, as you would, but vanished.
"So it went on for years, and finally on his sixty-fourth birthday King Fuzzywuz gave his usual party, and sixty-four of the choicest kings in the world were invited. They every one came, the feast was made ready, and just as the guests took their places around the table, the broth with me lying at the side of the tureen was brought in. The kings all took their crowns off in honor of my arrival, when suddenly pouf! a gust of wind came along and blew out every light in the hall. All was darkness, and in the midst of it I felt myself grabbed by the handle and shoved hastily into an entirely strange pocket.
"'What, ho, without there!' cried Fuzzywuz. 'Turn off the wind and bring a light.'
"The slaves hastened to do as they were told, and in less time than it takes to tell it, light and order were restored. And then a terrible scene ensued. I could see it very plainly through a button-hole in the cloak of the potentate who had seized me and hidden me in his pocket. Fuzzywuz immediately discovered that I was missing.
"'What has become of our royal spoon?' he roared to the head-waiter, who, though he was an African of the blackest hue, turned white as a sheet with fear.
"'It was in the broth, oh, Nepotic Fuzzywuz, King of the Desert and most noble Potentate of the Sand Dunes, when I, thy miserable servant, brought it into the gorgeous banqueting hall and set it here before thee, who art ever my most Serene and Egotistic Master,' returned the slave, trembling with fear and throwing himself flat upon the dining-hall floor.
"'Caitiff!' cried the king. 'I believe thou hast played me false. Do spoons take wings unto themselves and fly away? Are they tadpoles that they develop legs and hop as frogs from our royal presence? Do spoons evapidate——'
"'Evaporate, my dear,' suggested the queen in a whisper.
"'Thanks,' returned the king. 'Do spoons evaporate like water in the sun? Do they raise sails like sloops of war and thunder noiselessly out of sight? No, no. Thou hast stolen it and thou must bear the penalty of thy predilection——'