Theron eyed him curiously. This was not the way the bitter court-fool had been wont to speak. “You seem to me a changed fool,” he said, wearily.
Diogenes patted him fondly on the shoulder.
“Set it down to hearing birds whistle and watching green things grow. I am ripe and mellow. If you squeezed me dry you would find no drop of bitter in me. I bulge with benevolence like a ripe fig—and therefore your lugubrious visage troubles me.”
Theron answered, heavily: “My child is charged with sorcery. There is no man but me to champion her. If I fail to win the day she dies by fire.”
Diogenes seemed grieved. “She was a sweet lass and she gave me sweet milk to drink, and she showed me the way to the wonder-world of the wood. If I were something more of a fool and something less of a wiseacre I would champion her myself.” And he swelled his lean body and strutted, ludicrously martial.
“Away, fool!” Theron said, angrily, for the fantastic figure vexed him.
But Diogenes was not to be offended.
“Nay, now,” he hummed, benignly. “You are short with me, yet my brain bubbles with all the wit of the elder world. When I woke this morn in the green wood, a bird sang in my ear and his song told me to go down to Syracuse and creep into the King’s garden; and because I am wise enough to know that the birds are wiser than I, why, I came, but I did not think it was to see a fair maid murdered. I would have liked such a sight once, but now I do not, so I will go and sleep in the rose-garden. That is what the fairies told me to do, and they will tell me when to wake. Courage, ancient! courage!”
He paused for a moment, with his head cocked on one side, eying the executioner compassionately, yet listening with pricked, bat-wing ears. Some sound startled him, for he suddenly stirred like a startled hare, and, stooping, scuttled with incredible swiftness into the shelter of the royal gardens, where he was soon lost to sight.