"He was," shouted Twobyfour hoarsely. "He tried to steal the jewels from me. That's how he got the black eye."
"But you tried to steal them from me, and what about that my fine fellow?" Twobyfour turned a painful and uncomfortable scarlet under the King's accusing eye.
"In Skampavia we have so little, your Majesty," he stuttered miserably. "With these emeralds I thought I might buy a bit of land in some cooler and more comfortable country where my wife and two boys could be happy—a country where flowers would grow in a garden, and where a man would not have to spend his whole life wrestling with rocks and weeds and drilling for hours in the hot sun for no reason whatsoever."
"Hah!" exclaimed Pinny Penny, looking meaningly at the King.
"Hah, yourself!" grunted Skamperoo wrathfully, then as the emeralds continued to sparkle and glitter in his hand his anger subsided.
"You did very wrong to keep the necklace, Twobyfour," he stated mildly. "But I have decided to forgive you. Return now to the Second County and explain to the merchant who gave you this necklace that I must have all three."
"All three!" exclaimed Twobyfour. "But he's entitled by law to two of them."
"My word is the law here, and you can choose between a broken law or a broken head," Skamperoo told him calmly.
"He is the KING," murmured Pinny Penny in a quiet voice. There was nothing sarcastic in the manner of his speech, but something in the Prime Minister's expression made the King prickle all over with discomfort.
