Phedo, who had been earnestly talking with his tutor, now looked up.

“You shall not resign any thing!” he cried.  “We are all of the same blood, and we will join together and form a royal family, and we will all live at the palace.  Alberdin and my tutor shall manage the government for me until I am grown up; and if I have to go to school for a few years, I suppose I must.  And that is all there is about it!”

The syndicate was now ordered to retire and disband; the heralds proclaimed Phedo the conquering heir, and the people cheered and shouted with delight.  All the virtues of the late Autocrat had come to him from his mother, and the citizens of Mutjado much preferred to have a new ruler from the mother’s family.

“I hope you bear no grudge against me,” said Salim to Alberdin; “but if you had been willing to wait for thirteen years, you and Phedo might have fought on equal terms.  As it is now, it would have been as hard for him to conquer you, as for you to conquer the syndicate.  The odds would have been quite as great.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Alberdin.  “I prefer things as they are.  I should have hated to drive the boy away, and deprive him of a position which the people wish him to have.  Now we are all satisfied.”

Phedo soon began to show signs that he would probably make a very good Autocrat.  He declared that if he was to be assisted by ministers and cabinet officers when he came to the throne, he would like them to be persons who had been educated for their positions, just as he was to be educated for his own.  Consequently he chose for the head of his cabinet a bright and sensible boy, and had him educated as a Minister of State.  For Minister of Finance, he chose another boy with a very honest countenance, and for the other members of his cabinet, suitable youths were selected.  He also said, that he thought there ought to be another officer, one who would be a sort of Minister of General Comfort, who would keep an eye on the health and happiness of the subjects, and would also see that every thing went all right in the palace, not only in regard to meals, but lots of other things.  For this office he chose a bright young girl, and had her educated for the position of Queen.

 The banished king.

* * * * *

There was once a kingdom in which every thing seemed to go wrong.  Everybody knew this, and everybody talked about it, especially the King.  The bad state of affairs troubled him more than it did any one else, but he could think of no way to make them better.

“I cannot bear to see things going on so badly,” he said to the Queen and his chief councillors.  “I wish I knew how other kingdoms were governed.”

One of his councillors offered to go to some other countries, and see how they were governed, and come back and tell him all about it, but this did not suit his majesty.