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. This King was very fond of music; in fact, he was excessively fond of it. He kept four bands of music playing all day long. The first was a brass band, the second was a string band, the third was …
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