ONCE upon a time—and a good time it was—there lived a king. I do not know exactly what his name was, or just where he lived; but it doesn’t matter at all: his kingdom was somewhere between Ashantee and Holland, and his name sounded a little like Samuel, and a little like Dolabella, and a good deal like Chimborazo, and yet it was not quite any of them. But, as I said before, it doesn’t matter. We will call him the King, and that will be all that is necessary, as there is no other king in the story.