"But what do you raise in your gardens?" asked Jimmieboy, as the laureate completed his composition.
"Nothing, of course," said the king. "What's a garden for, anyhow? Pleasure, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Jimmieboy's voice, "but "
"There isn't any but about it," said the king. "If a garden is for pleasure it must not be worked in. Business and pleasure are two very different things, and you cannot raise flowers without working."
"But how do you get pleasure out of a garden when you don't raise anything in it?"
"Aren't you dull!" ejaculated the king. "Write me a quatrain on his dullness, O laureate."
"Confound his dullness!" muttered the laureate. "I'm rapidly wearing out, poetizing about this boy." Then he added, aloud: "Certainly, your majesty. Here it is:
"He is the very dullest lad
I've seen in all my life;
For dullness he is quite as bad
As any oyster-knife."
"Is that all?" asked the king, with a frown.
"I'm afraid four lines is as many as I can squeeze into a quatrain," said the laureate, returning the frown with interest.
"Then tell this young man's ear, sirrah, how it comes that we get pleasure out of a garden in which nothing grows."
"If I must I suppose I must," growled the laureate; and then he recited:
"The plan is thus, O little wit,
You'll see it in a minute;
We get our pleasures out of it,
Because there's none within it."
"That is very poor poetry, Laury!" snapped the king.
"If you don't like it, don't take it," retorted the laureate. "I'm tired of this business, anyhow."