"Your majesty," said Quinn, "this needy gentleman is also a friend of ours. Will you not supply his wants, or enable us to do so?"
"The indexograph informed me as to his character," answered the king, "and it is a law of the realm that punishment must fit the crime. When your friend will truly acknowledge himself in the wrong his needs will be plentifully supplied. Until that time he must beg his food from house to house, morsel by morsel."
"And this other gentleman in the kirtle," proceeded the professor, "will you not exercise a little clemency in his case?"
"I have already exercised a good deal of clemency," the king answered; "nor can I go any further until he also announces a change of heart."
Markham was as deaf to the word-boxes as was Meigs, and his majesty's will was interpreted to them.
"I am not in the wrong!" declared Markham. "The principle involved is of vital importance, and I will die for it, if need be."
"So will I," averred Meigs.
"We will eliminate your friends from our calculations for the present," said the king. "Just now I would like to know what has become of my executioner-general."
"He is pinned to the roof of the under-world," said the professor.
"Can you bring him back?" asked the king, turning his eye aloft. "Really, I don't see how we are to get along without him."