“I feel better,” I told him, after a few minutes.
“That’s the stuff,” he encouraged, like the good pal that he was.
“Shall we go to sleep?”
“Sure thing. For if we don’t we’ll be half dead to-morrow.”
The sheets were nice and warm now. And how different I felt! That’s the way it is with a fellow—he gets shivery one minute and then in another minute he’s all right again. I rather liked it now. I felt like a king. What was that story in the Arabian Nights? Oh, yes! A boy wanted to be king, and one night the real king, in going around secretly, heard the boy wishing. And for a joke the boy was carried in his sleep to the palace where he was put in the king’s bed. Waking up the next morning, he was king, all right, just as he had wanted to be! He was king all that day. Then in the dark they carried him home again.
That was me. I was king, too. And in the morning the black eunuchs, or whatever you call ’em, would come in, bowing and scraping. The Grand Vizier would come in, too, to find out which of my six hundred suits I wanted to wear that morning, and how many prisoners’ heads I wanted cut off before breakfast. Maybe I would be asleep when the Grand Vizier came. He wouldn’t dare to wake me up, me being king. That is, he wouldn’t dare to shake the tar out of me as Mother does when she gets out of patience with me on school mornings. Still, he might ever so gently touch my royal fingers as they lay on the solid gold coverlet. And that’s exactly what he did do! He reached down and touched my fingers—only it wasn’t my fingers it was my bare toes. More than that, he pinched. Good night! Didn’t the dumb-bell know any better than to pinch the king’s toes? I’d fix him for this. I’d have his head cut off. And now what was he doing? Why was he stooping over? Was he going to bite my toe? Well, of all things! I could see his white teeth ... and then, as he took hold, I could feel his teeth.
I woke up to find Poppy shaking me.
“For the love of mud, kid! Why don’t you kick the house down.”
“The Grand Vizier bit my toe,” I yipped.
“The Grand Vizier! You’ve been dreaming.”