"Now that," said his Majesty, "strikes me as being real poetry. How does it strike you, Sir John Dough?"
"It's fairly good," replied the gingerbread man; "but it hardly does you justice."
"The Poet doesn't dare do his Majesty justice," said the Disagreeable Failing. "If he did, there would soon be no Poet."
"There's something in that, too," said the kinglet. "But now, Sir Austed, write me a sonnet on my new subject, Sir John Dough."
The Poet sighed and began writing on his tablets; and presently he read this:
"The Kinglet of Phreex, it is said,
Has a Knight made of stale gingerbread;
We could eat him, but yet
The dyspepsia we'd get
Would soon make us wish we were dead."
"That," said John, indignantly, "is rank libel; and if your Majesty will loan me your sceptre, I'll make an end of this Poet in seven seconds by the clock."
"You have my permission to make mince-meat of him," replied the kinglet, cheerfully.
"Mercy! mercy, my lord!" screamed the Poet, falling upon his knees before John and hastily wiping the verse off his tablets, "give me one more chance, I beg of you!"