How the Sad King Learned to Laugh.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIII, Issue VI, 6 August 1904, Page 61

How the Sad King Learned to Laugh.

Uiiee upon a time there was a young King wno was so very sad that no one in ms Court quite Knew what to mate of it. are always dressed in black and let ins hair grow down until it tell upon ms shoulders, although his barber-sur-geon was perfectly wild to cut it in tue most lasmonable manner ot the time. jNow, tins Kings Court was usually a very gay one, and it not only troumeu his Cauinet sadly to see Him wasting away with his strange grief, but it also wearied tne gay courtiers to be always going about puiiing long faces and wearing null-coloured clothes. isow, the King’s Cabinet and, most of all, his Prime Minister, were loyal and nurd-working ollicials, and zealous in every tiling that concerned their royal master. And so, when they saw ms sadness growing day jay day more settled on his face, they strove to invent diversions' for him to drive away this melancholy. They begged from ail the neighbouring Kings tne loans of their favourite jesters, but when these jesters came and had the whole Court roaring with laughter until the tears ran down their cheeks, the King sat in his chair of state and looked as though he were at the funeral of his dearest friend. The Prime Minister brought strolling prayers, who failed to enliven his royal master; he arranged great pageants of the troops and tne populace, with all sorts of beautiful and picturesque spectacles, and finally the Cabinet induced one of the neighbouring kings to declare war on the sad King and attack the capital city, but this was equally fruitless. The King sat with his chin resting in the hollow of his hand, and never stirred even when the cannon roared the loudest. Then one day the Prime Minister burst into the meeting of the Cabinet in a most excitable manner. ‘'Gentlemen,” he said, as he dropped down into his seat at the head of the council room, “I have a new plan to propose for the saving of his Majesty. We must find a wife for him; and at once.” “The very thing!” cried the members of the Cabinet all together. “Why did we not think of this before?” said the Chancellor. And then they set about drawing up a proclamation to be sent by courtiers into all the neighbouring kingdoms, stating that the King would marry any Princess who could make him laugh. Of course you will see the members of the Cabinet took a great liberty with the King. But they felt sure that if he could be once made to laugh, he would be so charmed with the Princess who had made him forget his secret grief that he would want to marry her forth with.

So the courtiers, each attended by a herald, went on their missions to all the kingdoms about, and read the proclamation in all their courts. In a very few days Princess after Princess began to arrive at the King’s Palace, where they were received by the Cabinet, and each one was given an hour in which to try to make the King laugh. By the rules of the contest, if they had made the King smile by the end of the first hour

they might have another hour’s trial, .vow, an of the Princesses were lovely, aim most ot them were very clever, and as tue King was young and rich and nanusome tuey tried very hard to make turn laugn. Some of them told him luuiiy stories, which the Court jesters han invented lor them; some sang "coon songs and did cakewalks; some put on luuny clotues like you would wear at a masquerade party, and one went into the Kings presence riding backward on a little donkey. But it was oi no use. Tue King may have seen luem, but no one would ever have noticed it. Certain it was he never smiled. Anu tue Princesses all went home in tears. xxow, the Prime Minister was a very nervous man, and could not wait in the palace to bear the decision of the Chancellor, who was Hie judge of the Princess' trials. So he went for a walk in the market place, where tne Chancellor lound him when lie came to report the lailure of their last plan. A little group ot people gathered near the Chancellor as lie told ms story to the Prime Minister, and so they saw hiiulift up his hands appealingly to the sky and cry out: “why should we care for a Princess? I’d wed him to a gooseherd, if she could make him laugh.” At this a young man stepped out of the crowd ot bystanders, took off his cap respectfully, and bowing low to the Prime Minister, said: “Do you really mean that, my Dol’d?” “What makes you ask?” replied the Prime Minister. "Know you such a person?” “I do, indeed, my Dord,” answered the young man. “1 have a sister who tends our tloeks of geese, and who laughs more beautifully and more merrily than anyone in the whole world.” As he spoke the memory of his sister’s laughter aroused so merry a peal on his own part that all the bystanders broke into laughter, and the Chancellor, as well, and even the grave and troubled Prime Minister smiled in spite of himself. "Can she laugh as merrily as you do, my lad?” asked the Prime Minister. “As well as 1 do, my Lord? Why, my laughter is as mirthless as a cracked bell compared to hers. Why, my Lord, when she laughs, even her geese laugh with her, and the ripples on the pools run towards her, and the very trees seem to shake their branches with laughter, too. Ah, my Lord, if our sad King should hear my sister laugh but once his melancholy would fade away as the dew does before the sunlight.” “Run, boy, run,” cried the Prime Minister pushing him as he spoke. “Run and bring your sister hither at once. Come you with her to the palace and ask for me. Run, run!” he cried. But he might have saved his breath, for the boy was running away out of the town as fast as his long legs eould carry him. The Prime Minister went back to the palace, and sat with the King in the state chamber. Presently there fell upon his ear a strange and confused sound, and he went to the window and looked out. Coming up towards the palace gates was the young man who had promised to bring his sister back with him. He was laughing, and by his side walked a beautiful young girl, dressed like a goose-

herd, whose laughter now rang out clear and true high above that of the crowd who were laughing with her. As the gooseherd came through the palace gates the very guards were infected with her merriment, and stood holding their sides, they laughed so much. Even the Prime Minister discovered that he was laughing too. Turning towards the door, he sawall the Cabinet Ministers had gathered there, and they were all laughing as no one had ever been seen to laugh in that room in the reign of the Sad King, but, most wonderful of all, when they turned to look at the King his face was set in a broad grin, and just as the gooseherd entered the state chamber and her rich

laughter leaped up to the ceiling and tilled all its empty .-paces the King roared aloud in glee. “Don’t you think, your Highness,” laughed the Prime Minister, “that you had better marry this girl?” "t)h. this is so sudden.” roared the King. "I think I will!" And he did.